LIBRARY 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 
SANTA  BARBARA 

PRESENTED  BY 

Mr-    H.    H.    KM  iani 


Stt  LIBKAR1 


H.    DE    BALZAC 


THE   COMEDIE    HUMAINE 


COME  IN.-* 


H.    DE    BALZAC 


(L'ENVERS  DE  L'HlSTOIRE  CONTEMPORAINE) 

AND    OTHER    STORIES 


TRANSLATED    BY 


CLARA    BELL 


WITH  A  PREFACE  BY 


GEORGE   SAINTSBURY 


PHILADELPHIA 

THE  GEBBIE  PUBLISHING  Co.,  Ltd. 
1898 


CONTENTS 


MMB 

PREFACE ix 

THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY— 

FIRST   EPISODE  :   MADAME  DE   LA   CHANTERIE       ...  I 

SECOND   EPISODE:   INITIATED         .  .  .  .          .  .122 

AT  THE  SIGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND  RACKET      .        .    229 

THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN 291 

AN  EPISODE    OF  THE  REIGN  OF  TERROR       .        .371 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


"COME  IN"  (p.  47) Frontispiece. 

PACK 
"I  AM  ALAIN,  MONGENOD'S   FRIEND"    ......        55 


"I  BEG  YOUR  PARDON  A  THOUSAND  TIMES,   MONSIEUR"        .  .      137 

"HERE,    MY    DEAR,    IS    OUR    NEIGHBOR    OF    WHOM    I    SPOKE    TO 

YOU" 174 

Drawn  by  y.  Ayton  Symington. 

ISAURE  WOULD  PUT  HER  LITTLE  FOOT  ON  A  CHAIR.     ...     336 
Drawn  by  W.  Boucher. 


PREFACE. 

THERE  is  in  "L'Envers  de  1'Histoire  Contemporaine  "  an 
ominous  atmosphere  of  flagging,  combined  with  a  not  less 
ominous  return  to  a  weaker  handling  of  ideas  and  schemes 
which  the  author  had  handled  more  strongly  earlier.  We 
have  seen  that  the  secret-society  craze — a  favorite  one  with 
most  Frenchmen,  and  closely  connected  with  their  famous 
panic-terror  of  being  "  betrayed  "  in  war  and  politics — had  an 
especially  strong  hold  on  this  most  typical  of  French  novelists. 
He  had  almost  begun  his  true  career  with  the  notion  of  a  league 
of  "  Devorants,"  of  persons  banded,  if  not  exactly  against  so- 
ciety, at  any  rate  for  the  gratifying  of  their  own  desires  and 
the  avenging  of  their  own  wrongs,  with  an  utter  indifference 
to  social  laws  and  arrangements.  He  ended  it,  or  nearly  so, 
with  the  idea  of  a  contrary  league  of  Consolation,  which 
should  employ  money,  time,  pains,  and  combination  to  supply 
the  wants  and  heal  the  wounds  which  Society  either  directly 
causes  or  more  or  less  callously  neglects. 

The  later  idea  is,  of  course,  a  far  nobler  one  than  the  earlier; 
it  shows  a  saner,  healthier,  happier  state  of  imagination;  it 
coincides  rather  remarkably  with  an  increasing  tendency  of  the 
age  ever  since  Balzac's  time.  Nay,  more,  the  working  out  of 
it  contains  none  of  those  improbabilities  and  childishnesses 
which,  to  any  but  very  youthful  tastes  and  judgments,  mar  the 
"  Histoire  des  Treize  "  [The  Thirteen].  And  it  is  also  better 
written.  Balzac,  with  that  extraordinary  "  long  develop- 
ment"  of  his,  as  they  say  of  wines,  constantly  improved  in 
this  particular  ;  and  whatever  may  be  the  doubts  on  the  point 
referred  to  above,  we  may  say  with  some  confidence  that  had 
he  lived,  he  would  have  written,  in  the  mere  sense  of  writing, 
ever  better  and  better.  Yet  again,  we  catch  quaint  and  pleas- 
ant echoes  of  youth  in  these  pages,  and  are  carried  back  nearly 

(ix) 


x  PREFACE. 

fifty  years  in  nominal  date,  and  more  than  twenty  in  dates  of 
actual  invention,  by  such  names  as  Montauran  and  Pille-Miche 
and  Marche-a-Terre. 

But  when  all  this  is  said,  it  cannot,  I  think,  be  denied  that 
a  certain  dullness,  a  heaviness,  does  rest  on  Madame  de  la 
Chanterie  and  L'Initie.  The  very  reference  to  the  "Medecin 
de  Campagne,"  which  Balzac  with  his  systematizing  mania 
brings  in,  calls  up  another  unlucky  contrast.  There,  too,  the 
benevolence  and  the  goodness  were  something  fanciful,  not  to 
say  fantastic;  but  there  was  an  inspiration,  a  vigor,  to  speak 
vulgarly,  a  "  go,"  which  we  do  not  find  here.  Balzac's  awk- 
ward and  inveterate  habit  of  parenthetic  and  episodic  narra- 
tives and  glances  backward  is  not  more  obvious  here  than  in 
many  other  pieces ;  but  there  is  not,  as  in  some  at  least  of  these 
other  pieces,  strength  enough  of  main  interest  to  carry  it  off. 
The  light  is  clear,  it  is  religious  and  touching  in  its  dimness  ; 
but  the  lamp  burns  low.  In  the  very  interesting  preface, 
dated  July,  1842,  which  Balzac  prefixed  to  the  first  collection 
of  the  Comedie  Humaine,  he  endeavors,  naturally  enough,  to 
represent  the  division  into  Scenes  de  la  Vie  Parisienne,  etc., 
as  a  rational  and  reasoned  one.  Although  not  quite  arbitrary, 
it  was  of  course  to  a  great  extent  determined  by  considerations 
which  were  not  those  of  design ;  and  we  did  not  require  the 
positive  testimony  which  we  find  in  the  Letters  to  tell  us  that 
in  the  author's  view,  as  well  as  in  our  own,  not  a  few  of  the 
stories  might  have  been  shifted  over  from  one  division  to  an- 
other, and  have  filled  their  place  just  as  well  in  the  other  as  in 
the  one. 

"La  Maison  du  Chat-qui-Pelote,M  however,  which  orig- 
inally bore  the  much  less  happy  title  of  "  Gloire  et  Malheur  " 
[Fame  and  Sorrow],  was  a  Scene  de  la  Vie  Privee  from  the 
first,  and  it  bears  out  better  than  some  of  its  companions  its 
author's  expressed  intention  of  making  these  "scenes"  repre- 
sent youth,  whether  Parisian  or  Provincial.  Few  of  Balzac's 
stories  have  united  the  general  suffrage  for  touching  grace 


PREFACE.  » 

more  than  this ;  and  there  are  few  better  examples  of  his 
minute  Dutch-painting  than  the  opening  passages,  or  of  his 
unconquerable  delight  in  the  details  of  business  than  his  sketch 
of  Monsieur  Guillaume's  establishment  and  its  ways.  The 
French  equivalent  of  the  "Complete  Tradesman"  of  Defoe 
lasted  much  longer  than  his  English  counterpart ;  but,  except 
in  the  smaller  provincial  towns,  he  is  said  to  be  uncommon 
now.  As  for  the  plot,  if  such  a  stately  name  can  be  given  to 
so  delicate  a  sketch,  it  is  of  course  open  to  downright  British 
judgment  to  pronounce  the  self-sacrifice  of  Lebas  more  ignoble 
than  touching,  the  conduct  of  Theodore  too  childish  to  de- 
serve the  excuses  sometimes  possible  for  passionate  incon- 
stancy, and  the  character  of  Augustine  angelically  idiotic. 
This  last  outrage,  if  it  were  committed,  would  indeed  only  be 
an  instance  of  the  irreconcilable  difference  which  almost  to 
the  present  day  divides  English  and  French  ideas  of  ideally 
perfect  girlhood,  and  of  that  state  of  womanhood  which  cor- 
responds thereto.  The  candeur  adorable  which  the  French- 
man adores  and  exhibits  in  the  girl ;  the  uncompromising, 
though  mortal,  passion  of  the  woman ;  are  too  different  from 
any  ideal  that  we  have  entertained,  except  for  a  very  short 
period  in  the  eighteenth  century.  But  there  are  few  more 
pathetic  and  charming  impersonations  of  this  other  ideal  than 
Augustine  de  Sommervieux. 

"La  Maison  Nucingen"  has  interests  of  various  kinds. 
The  story  of  Madame  Surville,  and  the  notary,  and  his  testi- 
mony to  Balzac's  competence  in  bankruptcy  matters,  have  been 
referred  to  in  the  General  Introduction.  "La  Maison  Nu- 
cingen" is  scarcely  less  an  example  of  this  than  "  Cesar  Birot- 
teau."  It  is  also  a  curious  study  of  Parisian  business  generally, 
showing  the  intense  and  extraordinary  interest  which  Balzac 
took  in  anything  speculative.  Evil  tongues  at  the  time  iden- 
tified Nucingen  with  the  first  Rothschild  of  the  Paris  branch, 
but  the  resemblances  are  of  the  most  general  and  distant  kind. 
Indeed,  it  may  be  said  that  Balzac,  to  his  infinite  honor  both 


rii  PREFACE. 

in  character  and  genius,  seldom  indulged  in  the  clumsy  lug- 
ging in  of  real  persons  by  head  and  shoulders  which  has  come 
into  fashion  since  his  time,  especially  in  France.  Even  where 
there  are  certain  resemblances,  as  in  Henri  de  Marsay  to 
Charles  de  Remusat,  in  Rastignac  to  Thiers,  in  Lousteau  to 
Jules  Janin,  and  elsewhere,  the  borrowed  traits  are  so  blended 
and  disguised  with  others,  and  the  whole  so  melted  down  and 
reformed  by  art,  that  not  merely  could  no  legitimate  anger  be 
aroused  by  them,  but  the  artist  could  not  be  accused  of  hav- 
ing in  any  way  exceeded  his  rights  as  an  artist  and  his  duty  as 
a  gentleman.  If  he  has  ever  stepped  out  of  these  wise  and 
decent  limits,  the  transgression  is  very  rare,  and  certainly 
Nucingen  is  not  an  example  of  it.  For  the  rest,  the  story 
itself  is  perhaps  more  clever  and  curious  than  exactly  in- 
teresting. 

"L'Envers  de  1'Histoire  Contemporaine,"  as  above  stated, 
was,  in  part,  one  of  the  very  latest  of  Balzac's  works,  and  was 
actually  finished  during  his  residence  at  Vierzschovnia.  "Ma- 
dame de  la  Chanterie,"  however,  was  somewhat  earlier,  part 
of  it  having  been  written  in  1842.  It  appeared  in  a  fragmen- 
tary and  rather  topsy-turvy  fashion,  with  separate  titles,  in  the 
"  Musee  des  Families,"  from  September  in  the  year  just  named 
to  November,  1844,  and  was  only  united  together  in  the  first 
edition  of  the  Comedie  two  years  later,  though  even  after  this 
it  had  a  separate  appearance  with  some  others  of  its  author's 
works  in  1847.  "L'Initie,"  or,  as  it  was  first  entitled,  "Les 
Freres  de  la  Consolation,"  was  not  written  till  this  latter  year, 
and  appeared  in  1848  in  the  "Spectateur  Republicain,"  but 
not  as  a  book  till  after  the  author's  death.  In  both  cases 
there  was  the  usual  alternation  of  chapter  divisions,  with  head- 
ings and  none. 

"La  Maison  Nucingen"  (which  the  author  also  thought  of 
calling  "La  Haute  Banque")  originally  appeared  with  "La 
Femme  Superieure"  ("Les  Employes")  and  that  part  of 
"  Splendeurs  et  Miseres  "  entitled  "  La  Torpille,"  in  October, 


PREFACE,  xiii 

1838,  published  by  Werdet  in  two  volumes.  Six  years  later 
it  took  rank  as  a  Scene  de  la  Vie  Parisienne  in  the  first  edition 
of  the  Comedie. 

G.  S. 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE  OF  HISTORY. 

FIRST  EPISODE. 

MADAME   DE   LA   CHANTERIE. 

ONE  fine  September  evening,  in  the  year  1836,  a  man  of 
about  thirty  was  leaning  over  the  parapet  of  the  quay  at  a 
point  whence  the  Seine  may  be  surveyed  up  stream  from  the 
Jardin  des  Plantes  to  Notre-Dame,  and  down  in  grand  per- 
spective to  the  Louvre. 

There  is  no  such  view  elsewhere  in  the  Capital  of  Ideas 
(Paris).  You  are  standing,  as  it  were,  on  the  poop  of  a  vessel 
that  has  grown  to  vast  proportions.  You  may  dream  there  of 
Paris  from  Roman  times  to  the  days  of  the  Franks,  from  the 
Normans  to  the  Burgundians,  through  the  Middle  Ages  to 
the  Valois,  Henri  IV.,  Napoleon,  and  Louis  Philippe.  There 
is  some  vestige  or  building  of  each  period  to  bring  it  to  mind. 
The  dome  of  Saint-Genevieve  shelters  the  Latin  Quarter. 
Behind  you  rises  the  magnificent  east  end  of  the  cathedral. 
The  Hotel  de  Ville  speaks  of  all  the  revolutions,  the  Hotel 
Dieu  of  all  the  miseries  of  Paris.  After  glancing  at  the  splen- 
dors of  the  Louvre,  take  a  few  steps,  and  you  can  see  the  rags 
that  hang  out  from  the  squalid  crowd  of  houses  that  huddle 
between  the  Quai  de  la  Tournelle  and  the  Hotel  Dieu ;  the 
authorities  are,  however,  about  to  clear  them  away. 

In  1836  this  astonishing  picture  inculcated  yet  another  les- 
son. Between  the  gentleman  who  leaned  over  the  parapet 
and  the  cathedral,  the  deserted  plot,  known  of  old  as  le  Ter- 
rain, was  still  strewn  with  the  ruins  of  the  archbishop's  palace. 
As  we  gaze  there  on  so  many  suggestive  objects,  as  the  mind 
takes  in  the  past  and  the  present  of  the  city  of  Paris,  religion 

(1) 


2  THE   SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

seems  to  have  established  herself  there  that  she  might  lay  her 
hands  on  the  sorrows  on  both  sides  of  the  river,  from  the 
Saint-Antoine  suburb  to  that  of  Saint-Marceau. 

It  is  to  be  hoped  that  these  sublime  harmonies  may  be 
completed  by  the  construction  of  an  episcopal  palace  in  a 
Gothic  style  to  fill  the  place  of  the  meaningless  buildings  that 
now  stand  between  the  Island,  the  Rue  d'Arcole,  and  the 
Quai  de  la  Cite. 

This  spot,  the  very  heart  of  old  Paris,  is  beyond  anything  de- 
serted and  melancholy.  The  waters  of  the  Seine  break  against 
the  wall  with  a  loud  noise,  the  cathedral  throws  its  shadow 
there  at  sunset.  It  is  not  strange  that  vast  thoughts  should 
brood  there  in  a  brain-sick  man.  Attracted,  perhaps,  by  an 
accordance  between  his  own  feelings  at  the  moment  and  those 
to  which  such  a  varied  prospect  must  give  rise,  the  loiterer 
folded  his  hands  over  the  parapet,  lost  in  the  twofold  contem- 
plation of  Paris  and  of  himself !  The  shadows  spread,  lights 
twinkled  into  being,  and  still  he  did  not  stir  ;  carried  on  as 
he  was  by  the  flow  of  a  mood  of  thought,  big  with  the  future, 
and  made  solemn  by  the  past. 

At  this  instant  he  heard  two  persons  approaching,  whose 
voices  had  been  audible  on  the  stone  bridge  which  they  had 
crossed  from  the  Island  of  the  Cite  to  the  Quai  de  la  Tour- 
nelle.  The  two  speakers  no  doubt  believed  themselves  to  be 
alone,  and  talked  somewhat  louder  than  they  would  have 
done  in  a  more  frequented  place,  or  if  they  had  noticed  the 
propinquity  of  a  stranger.  From  the  bridge  their  tones  be- 
trayed an  eager  discussion,  bearing,  as  it  seemed,  from  a  few 
words  that  reached  the  involuntary  listener,  on  a  loan  of 
money.  As  they  came  nearer,  one  of  the  speakers,  dressed 
as  a  workingman,  turned  from  the  other  with  a  gesture  of 
despair.  His  companion  looked  around,  called  the  man  back, 
and  said — 

"You  have  not  a  sou  to  pay  the  bridge-toll.  Here!" — 
and  he  gave  him  a  coin — "  and  remember,  my  friend,  it  is 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  3 

God  Himself  who  speaks  to  us  when  a  good  thought  occurs  to 
any  of  us." 

The  last  words  startled  the  dreamer.  The  man  who  spoke 
had  no  suspicion  that,  to  use  a  proverbial  expression,  he  was 
killing  two  birds  with  one  stone ;  that  he  spoke  to  two  un- 
happy creatures — a  workman  at  his  wits'  end  and  a  soul  with- 
out a  compass ;  a  victim  of  what  Panurge's  sheep  call  Progress, 
and  a  victim  of  what  France  calls  equality. 

These  words,  simple  enough  in  themselves,  acquired  gran- 
deur from  the  tone  of  the  speaker,  whose  voice  had  a  sort  of 
magical  charm.  Are  there  not  such  voices,  calm  and  sweet, 
affecting  us  like  a  view  of  the  distant  ocean  ? 

The  speaker's  costume  showed  him  to  be  a  priest,  and  his 
face,  in  the  last  gleam  of  twilight,  was  pale  and  dignified, 
though  worn.  The  sight  of  a  priest  coming  out  of  the  great 
cathedral  of  Saint  Stephen  at  Vienna  to  carry  extreme  unction 
to  a  dying  man  persuaded  Werner,  the  famous  tragic  poet,  to 
become  a  Catholic.  The  effect  was  much  the  same  on  our 
Parisian  when  he  saw  the  man  who,  without  intending  it,  had 
brought  him  consolation ;  he  discerned  on  the  dark  line  of 
his  horizon  in  the  future  a  long  streak  of  light  where  the  blue 
of  heaven  was  shining,  and  he  followed  the  path  of  light,  as 
the  shepherds  of  the  Gospel  followed  the  voice  that  called  to 
them  from  on  high,  "  Christ  the  Lord  is  born  !  " 

The  man  of  healing  speech  walked  on  under  the  cathe- 
dral, and  by  favor  of  Chance — which  is  sometimes  consistent 
— made  his  way  toward  the  street  from  which  the  loiterer  had 
come,  and  whither  he  was  returning,  led  there  by  his  own 
mistakes  in  life. 

This  young  man's  name  was  Godefroid.  As  this  narrative 
proceeds,  the  reader  will  understand  the  reasons  for  giving  to 
the  actors  in  it  their  Christian  names  only. 

And  this  is  the  reason  why  Godefroid,  who  lived  near  the 
Chausee  d'Antin,  was  lingering  at  such  an  hour  under  the 
shadow  of  Notre-Dame. 


4  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

He  was  the  son  of  a  retail  dealer,  who,  by  economy,  had 
made  some  little  fortune,  and  in  him  centred  all  the  ambitions 
of  his  parents,  who  dreamed  of  seeing  him  a  notary  in  Paris. 
At  the  early  age  of  seven  he  had  been  sent  to  a  school,  kept 
by  the  Abbe  Liautard,  where  he  was  thrown  together  with 
the  children  of  certain  families  of  distinction,  who  had 
selected  this  establishment  for  the  education  of  their  sons,  out 
of  attachment  to  religion,  which,  under  the  Emperor,  was 
somewhat  too  much  neglected  in  the  lycees,  or  public  schools. 
At  that  age  social  inequalities  are  not  recognized  between 
schoolfellows;  but  in  1821,  when  his  studies  were  finished, 
Godefroid,  articled  to  a  notary,  was  not  slow  to  perceive 
the  distance  that  divided  him  from  those  with  whom  he  had 
hitherto  lived  on  terms  of  intimacy. 

While  studying  the  law,  he  found  himself  lost  in  the  crowd 
of  young  men  of  the  citizen  class,  who,  having  neither  a 
ready-made  fortune  nor  hereditary  rank,  had  nothing  to  look 
to  but  their  personal  worth  or  persistent  industry.  The  hopes 
built  upon  him  by  his  father  and  mother,  who  had  now 
retired  from  business,  stimulated  his  conceit  without  giving 
him  pride.  His  parents  lived  as  simply  as  Dutch  folk,  not 
spending  more  than  a  quarter  of  their  income  of  twelve 
thousand  francs ;  they  intended  to  devote  their  savings,  with 
half  their  capital,  to  the  purchase  of  a  connection  for  their 
son.  Godefroid,  reduced  also  to  live  under  the  conditions  of 
this  domestic  thrift,  regarded  them  as  so  much  out  of  pro- 
portion to  his  parents'  dreams  and  his  own  that  he  felt  disheart- 
ened. In  weak  characters  such  discouragement  leads  to  envy. 
While  many  other  men,  in  whom  necessity,  determination, 
and  good-sense  were  more  marked  than  talent,  went  straight 
and  steadfastly  onward  in  the  path  laid  down  for  modest 
ambitions,  Godefroid  waxed  rebellious,  longed  to  shine, 
insisted  on  facing  the  brightest  light,  and  so  dazzled  his  eyes. 
He  tried  to  "get  on,"  but  all  his  efforts  ended  in  demon- 
strating his  incapacity.  At  last,  clearly  perceiving  too  great 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  5 

a  discrepancy  between  his  desires  and  his  prospects,  he  con- 
ceived a  hatred  of  social  superiority;  he  became  a  Liberal, 
and  tried  to  make  himself  famous  by  a  book ;  but  he  learned, 
to  his  cost,  to  regard  talent  much  as  he  regarded  rank. 
Having  tried  by  turns  the  profession  of  notary,  the  bar,  and 
literature,  he  now  aimed  at  the  higher  branch  of  the  law. 

At  this  juncture  his  father  died.  His  mother,  content  in 
her  old  age  with  two  thousand  francs  a  year,  gave  up  almost 
her  whole  fortune  to  his  use.  Possessor  now,  at  twenty-five, 
of  ten  thousand  francs  a  year,  he  thought  himself  rich,  and  he 
was  so  as  compared  with  the  past.  Hitherto  his  life  had  been 
a  series  of  acts  with  no  will  behind  them,  or  of  impotent 
willing;  so,  to  keep  pace  with  the  age,  to  act,  to  become  a 
personage,  he  tried  to  get  into  some  circle  of  society  by  the 
help  of  his  money. 

At  first  he  fell  in  with  journalism,  which  has  always  an  open 
hand  for  any  capital  that  comes  in  its  way.  Now,  to  own  a 
newspaper  is  to  be  a  Personage ;  it  means  employing  talent 
and  sharing  its  successes  without  dividing  its  labors.  Nothing 
is  more  tempting  to  second-rate  men  than  thus  to  rise  by  the 
brains  of  others.  Paris  has  had  a  few  parvenus  of  this  type, 
whose  success  is  a  disgrace  both  to  the  age  and  to  those  who 
have  lent  a  lifting  shoulder. 

In  this  class  of  society  Godefroid  was  soon  cut  out  by  the 
vulgar  cunning  of  some  and  the  extravagance  of  others,  by 
the  money  of  ambitious  capitalists  or  the  manoeuvring  of  edi- 
tors ;  then  he  was  dragged  into  the  dissipations  that  a  literary 
or  political  life  entails,  the  habits  of  critics  behind  the  scenes, 
and  the  amusements  needed  by  men  who  work  their  brains 
hard.  Thus  he  fell  into  bad  company  ;  but  he  there  learned 
that  he  was  an  insignificant-looking  person,  and  that  he  had 
one  shoulder  higher  than  the  other  without  redeeming  this 
malformation  by  any  distinguished  ill-nature  or  wit.  Bad 
manners  are  a  form  of  self-payment  which  actors  snatch  by 
telling  the  truth. 


6  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY. 

Short,  badly  made,  devoid  of  wit  or  of  any  strong  bent,  all 
seemed  at  an  end  for  a  young  man  at  a  time  when  for  success 
in  any  career  the  highest  gifts  of  mind  are  as  nothing  without 
luck,  or  the  tenacity  which  commands  luck. 

The  revolution  of  1830  poured  oil  on  Godefroid's  wounds; 
he  found  the  courage  of  hope,  which  is  as  good  as  that  of 
despair.  Like  many  another  obscure  journalist,  he  got  an 
appointment  where  his  Liberal  ideas,  at  loggerheads  with  the 
demands  of  a  newly  established  power,  made  him  but  a  re- 
fractory instrument.  Veneered  only  with  Liberalism,  he  did 
not  know,  as  superior  men  did,  how  to  hold  his  own.  To 
obey  the  Ministry  was  to  him  to  surrender  his  opinions.  And 
the  Government  itself  seemed  to  him  false  to  the  laws  that  had 
given  rise  to  it.  Godefroid  declared  in  favor  of  movement 
when  what  was  needed  was  tenacity ;  he  came  back  to  Paris 
almost  poor,  but  faithful  to  the  doctrines  of  the  opposition. 

Alarmed  by  the  licentiousness  of  the  press,  and  yet  more  by 
the  audacity  of  the  republican  party,  he  sought  in  retirement 
the  only  life  suited  to  a  being  of  incomplete  faculties,  devoid 
of  such  force  as  might  defy  the  rough  jolting  of  political  life, 
weary,  too,  of  repeated  failures,  of  suffering  and  struggles 
which  had  won  him  no  glory;  and  friendless,  because  friend- 
ship needs  conspicuous  qualities  or  defects,  while  possessing 
feelings  that  were  sentimental  rather  than  deep.  Was  it  not, 
in  fact,  the  only  prospect  open  to  a  young  man  who  had  al- 
ready been  several  times  cheated  by  pleasure,  and  who  had 
grown  prematurely  old  from  friction  in  a  social  circle  that 
never  rests  nor  lets  others  rest  ? 

His  mother,  who  was  quietly  dying  in  the  peaceful  village 
of  Auteuil,  sent  to  her  son  to  come  to  her,  as  much  for  the 
sake  of  having  him  with  her  as  to  start  him  in  the  road  where 
he  might  find  the  calm  and  simple  happiness  that  befits  such 
souls.  She  had  at  last  taken  Godefroid's  measure  when  she 
saw  that  at  twenty-eight  he  had  reduced  his  whole  fortune  to 
four  thousand  francs  a  year ;  his  desires  blunted,  his  fancied 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  7 

talents  extinct,  his  energy  nullified,  his  ambition  crushed,  and 
his  hatred  for  every  one  who  rose  by  legitimate  effort  increased 
by  his  many  disappointments. 

She  tried  to  arrange  a  marriage  for  Godefroid  with  the  only 
daughter  of  a  retired  merchant,  thinking  that  a  wife  might  be 
a  guardian  to  his  distressful  mind,  but  the  old  father  brought 
the  mercenary  spirit  that  abides  in  those  who  have  been  en- 
gaged in  trade  to  bear  on  the  question  of  settlements.  At 
the  end  of  a  year  of  attentions  and  intimacy,  Godefroid's 
suit  was  rejected.  In  the  first  place,  in  the  opinion  of  these 
case-hardened  traders,  the  young  man  must  necessarily  have 
retained  a  deep-dyed  immorality  from  his  former  pursuits ; 
and  then,  even  during  this  past  year,  he  had  drawn  upon  his 
capital  both  to  dazzle  the  parents  and  to  attract  the  daughter. 
This  not  unpardonable  vanity  gave  the  finishing  touch ;  the 
family  .had  a  horror  of  unthrift ;  and  their  refusal  was  final 
when  they  heard  that  Godefroid  had  sacrificed  in  six  years  a 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  francs  of  his  capital. 

The  blow  fell  all  the  harder  on  his  aching  heart  because  the 
girl  was  not  at  all  good-looking.  Still,  under  his  mother's 
influence,  Godefroid  had  credited  the  object  of  his  addresses 
with  a  sterling  character  and  the  superior  advantages  of  a 
sound  judgment ;  he  was  accustomed  to  her  face,  he  had 
studied  its  expression,  he  liked  the  young  lady's  voice,  man- 
ners, and  look.  Thus,  after  staking  the  last  hope  of  his  life 
on  this  attachment,  he  felt  the  bitterest  despair. 

His  mother  dying,  he  found  himself— he  whose  require- 
ments had  always  followed  the  tide  of  fashion — with  five 
thousand  francs  for  his  whole  fortune,  and  the  certainty  of 
never  being  able  to  repair  any  future  loss,  since  he  saw  him- 
self incapable  of  the  energy  which  is  imperatively  demanded 
for  the  grim  task  of  "  making  a  fortune." 

But  a  man  who  is  weak,  aggrieved,  and  irritable  cannot 
submit  to  be  extinguished  at  a  blow.  While  still  in  mourn- 
ing, Godefroid  wandered  through  Paris  in  search  of  something 


8  THE   SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY. 

to  "  turn  up ;  "  he  dined  in  public  rooms,  he  rashly  introduced 
himself  to  strangers,  he  mingled  in  society,  and  met  with 
nothing  but  opportunities  for  expenditure.  As  he  wandered 
about  the  boulevards,  he  was  so  miserable  that  the  sight  of  a 
mother  with  a  young  daughter  to  marry  gave  him  as  keen  a 
pang  as  that  of  a  young  man  going  on  horseback  to  the  Bois, 
of  a  parvenu  in  a  smart  carriage,  or  of  an  official  with  a  rib- 
bon in  his  button-hole.  The  sense  of  his  own  inadequacy  told 
him  that  he  could  not  pretend  even  to  the  more  respectable  of 
second-class  positions,  nor  to  the  easiest  form  of  office-work. 
And  he  had  spirit  enough  to  be  constantly  vexed,  and  sense 
enough  to  bewail  himself  in  bitter  self-accusation. 

Incapable  of  contending  with  life,  conscious  of  certain 
superior  gifts,  but  devoid  of  the  will  that  brings  them  into 
play,  feeling  himself  incomplete,  lacking  force  to  undertake 
any  great  work,  or  to  resist  the  temptations  of  those  tastes  he 
had  acquired  from  education  or  recklessness  in  his  past  life, 
he  was  a  victim  to  three  maladies,  any  one  of  them  enough  to 
disgust  a  man  with  life  when  he  has  ceased  to  exercise  his 
religious  faith.  Indeed,  Godefroid  wore  the  expression  so 
common  now  among  men,  that  it  has  become  the  Parisian 
type ;  it  bears  the  stamp  of  disappointed  or  smothered  am- 
bitions, of  mental  distress,  of  hatred  lulled  by  the  apathy  of 
a  life  amply  filled  up  by  the  superficial  and  daily  spectacle  of 
Paris,  of  satiety  seeking  stimulants,  of  repining  without  talent, 
of  the  affectation  of  force ;  the  venom  of  past  failure  which 
makes  a  man  smile  at  scoffing,  and  scorn  all  that  is  elevating, 
misprize  the  most  necessary  authorities,  enjoy  their  dilemmas, 
and  disdain  all  social  forms. 

This  Parisian  disease  is  to  the  active  and  persistent  coalition 
of  energetic  malcontents  what  the  soft  wood  is  to  the  sap  of  a 
tree  ;  it  preserves  it,  feeds  it,  and  hides  it. 

Weary  of  himself,  Godefroid  one  morning  resolved  to  give 
himself  some  reason  for  living.  He  had  met  a  former  school- 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  9 

fellow,  who  had  proved  to  be  the  tortoise  of  the  fable  while 
he  himself  had  been  the  hare.  In  the  course  of  such  a  con- 
versation as  is  natural  to  old  companions  while  walking  in  the 
sunshine  on  the  Boulevard  des  Italiens,  he  was  amazed  to  find 
that  success  had  attended  this  man,  who,  apparently  far  less 
gifted  than  himself  with  talent  and  fortune,  had  simply  re- 
solved each  day  to  do  as  he  had  resolved  the  day  before. 
The  brain-sick  man  determined  to  imitate  this  simplicity  of 
purpose. 

"Life  in  the  world  is  like  the  earth,"  his  friend  had  said; 
"  it  yields  in  proportion  to  our  labors." 

Godefroid  was  in  debt.  As  his  first  penance,  his  first  duty, 
he  required  himself  to  live  in  seclusion  and  pay  his  debts  out 
of  his  income.  For  a  man  who  was  in  the  habit  of  spending 
six  thousand  francs  when  he  had  five,  it  was  no  light  thing  to 
reduce  his  expenses  to  two  thousand  francs.  He  read  the 
advertisement-sheets  every  morning,  hoping  to  find  a  place 
of  refuge  where  he  might  live  on  a  fixed  sum,  and  where  he 
might  enjoy  the  solitude  necessary  to  a  man  who  wanted  to 
study  and  examine  himself  and  discern  a  vocation.  The 
manners  and  customs  of  the  boarding-houses  in  the  Latin 
Quarter  were  an  offense  to  his  taste ;  a  private  pension,  he 
thought,  would  be  unhealthy ;  and  he  was  fast  drifting  back 
into  the  fatal  uncertainty  of  a  will-less  man,  when  the  following 
advertisement  caught  his  eye  : 

"  Small  apartments,  at  seventy  francs  a  month ;  might  suit  a  clerk  in 
orders.  Quiet  habits  expected.  Board  included  ;  and  the  rooms  will  be 
inexpensively  furnished  on  mutual  agreement.  Inquire  of  M.  Millet, 
grocer,  Rue  Chanoinesse,  by  Notre-Dame,  for  all  further  particulars." 

Attracted  by  the  artless  style  of  this  paragraph,  and  the 
aroma  of  simplicity  it  seemed  to  bear,  Godefroid  presented 
himself  at  the  grocer's  store  at  about  four  in  the  afternoon, 
and  was  told  that  at  that  hour  Madame  de  la  Chanterie  was 
dining,  and  could  see  no  one  at  meal-times.  The  lady  would 


10  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY. 

be  visible  in  the  evening  after  seven,  or  between  ten  and 
twelve  in  the  morning.  While  he  talked,  Monsieur  Millet 
took  stock  of  Godefroid,  and  proceeded  to  put  him  through 
his  first  examination — "Was  monsieur  single?  Madame 
wished  for  a  lodger  of  regular  habits.  The  house  was  locked 
up  by  eleven  at  latest. 

"Well,"  said  he  in  conclusion,  "you  seem  to  me,  mon- 
sieur, to  be  of  an  age  to  suit  Madame  de  la  Chanterie's 
views." 

"What  age  do  you  suppose  I  am?"  asked  Godefroid. 

"Somewhere  about  forty,"  replied  the  grocer. 

This  plain  answer  cast  Godefroid  into  the  depths  of  misan- 
thropy and  dejection.  He  went  to  dine  on  the  Quai  de  la 
Tournelle,  and  returned  to  gaze  at  Notre-Dame  just  as  the  fires 
of  the  setting  sun  were  rippling  and  breaking  in  wavelets  on 
the  buttresses  of  the  great  nave.  The  quay  was  already  in 
shadow,  while  the  towers  still  glittered  in  the  glow,  and  the 
contrast  struck  Godefroid  as  he  tasted  all  the  bitterness  which 
the  grocer's  brutal  simplicity  had  stirred  within  him. 

Thus  the  young  man  was  oscillating  between  the  whisper- 
ings of  despair  and  the  appealing  tones  of  religious  harmony 
aroused  in  his  mind  by  the  cathedral  bells,  when,  in  the  dark- 
ness, and  silence,  and  calm  moonshine,  the  priest's  speech  fell 
on  his  ear.  Though  far  from  devout — like  most  men  of  the 
century — his  feelings  were  touched  by  these  words,  and  he 
went  back  to  the  Rue  Chanoinesse,  where  he  had  but  just 
decided  not  to  go. 

The  priest  and  Godefroid  were  equally  surprised  on  turning 
into  the  Rue  Massillon,  opposite  the  north  door  of  the  cathe- 
dral, at  the  spot  where  it  ends  by  the  Rue  de  la  Colombe,  and 
is  called  Rue  des  Marmousets.  When  Godefroid  stopped 
under  the  arched  doorway  of  the  house  where  Madame  de  la 
Chanterie  lived,  the  priest  turned  round  to  examine  him  by 
the  light  of  a  hanging  oil-lamp,  which  will,  very  likely,  be 
one  of  the  last  to  disappear  in  the  heart  of  old  Paris. 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY,  11 

"  Do  you  wish  to  see  Madame  de  la  Chanterie,  monsieur?  " 
asked  the  priest. 

"  Yes,"  replied  Godefroid.  "  The  words  I  have  just  heard 
you  utter  to  that  workman  prove  to  me  that  this  house,  if  you 
dwell  in  it,  must  be  good  for  the  soul." 

"Then  you  witnessed  my  failure,"  said  the  priest,  lifting 
the  knocker,  "for  I  did  not  succeed." 

"  It  seems  to  me  that  it  was  the  workman  who  failed.  He 
had  begged  sturdily  enough  for  money." 

"Alas!  "  said  the  priest,  "one  of  the  greatest  misfortunes 
attending  revolutions  in  France  is  that  each,  in  its  turn,  offers 
a  fresh  premium  to  the  ambitions  of  the  lower  classes.  To  rise 
above  his  status  and  make  a  fortune,  which,  in  these  days,  is 
considered  the  social  guarantee,  the  workman  throws  himself 
into  monstrous  plots,  which,  if  they  fail,  must  bring  those 
who  dabble  in  them  before  the  bar  of  human  justice.  This  is 
what  good-nature  sometimes  ends  in." 

The  porter  now  opened  a  heavy  gate,  and  the  priest  said  to 
Godefroid — 

"  Then  you  have  come  about  the  rooms  to  be  let  ?  the  '  little 
suite,'  we  call  it." 

"  Yes,  monsieur." 

The  priest  and  Godefroid  then  crossed  a  fairly  wide  court- 
yard, beyond  which  stood  the  black  mass  of  a  tall  house, 
flanked  by  a  square  tower  even  higher  than  the  roof,  and 
amazingly  old.  Those  who  know  the  history  of  Paris  are 
aware  that  the  soil  has  risen  so  much  round  the  cathedral 
that  there  is  not  a  trace  to  be  seen  of  the  twelve  steps  which 
originally  led  up  to  it.  Hence  what  was  the  first  floor  of  this 
house  must  now  form  the  cellars.  There  is  a  short  flight  of 
outer  steps  to  the  door  of  the  tower,  and  inside  it  an  ancient 
Vise  or  stairs,  winding  in  a  spiral  round  a  newell  carved  to 
imitate  a  vine-stock.  This  style,  resembling  that  of  the  Louis 
XII.  staircases  at  Blois,  dates  as  far  back  as  the  fourteenth 
century. 


12  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

Struck  by  these  various  signs  of  antiquity,  Godefroid  could 
not  help  exclaiming — 

"  This  tower  was  not  built  yesterday  !  " 

"  It  is  said  to  have  withstood  the  attacks  of  the  Normans 
and  to  have  formed  part  of  a  primeval  palace  of  the  kings  of 
Paris ;  but  according  to  more  probable  traditions,  it  was  the 
residence  of  Fulbert,  the  famous  canon,  and  the  uncle  of 
HeloYse." 

As  he  spoke  the  priest  opened  the  door  of  the  apartment, 
which  seemed  to  be  the  first  floor,  and  which,  in  fact,  is  now 
but  just  above  the  ground  of  both  the  outer  and  the  inner 
courtyard — for  there  is  a  small  second  court. 

In  the  first  room  a  servant  sat  knitting  by  the  light  of  a 
small  lamp;  she  wore  a  cap  devoid  of  any  ornament,  but  its 
gauffered  cambric  frills.  She  stuck  one  of  the  needles  through 
her  hair,  but  did  not  lay  down  her  knitting  as  she  rose  to  open 
the  door  of  a  drawing-room  looking  out  on  the  inner  court. 
This  room  was  lighted  up.  The  woman's  dress  suggested  to 
Godefroid  that  of  some  gray  sisters. 

"Madame,  I  have  found  you  a  tenant,"  said  the  priest, 
showing  in  Godefroid,  who  saw  in  the  room  three  men,  sitting 
in  armchairs  near  Madame  de  la  Chanterie. 

The  three  gentlemen  rose  ;  the  mistress  of  the  house  also  ; 
and  when  the  priest  had  pushed  forward  a  chair  for  the 
stranger,  and  he  had  sat  down  in  obedience  to  a  sign  from 
Madame  de  la  Chanterie  and  an  old-fashioned  bidding  to 
"  Be  seated,"  the  Parisian  felt  as  if  he  were  far  indeed  from 
Paris,  in  remote  Brittany,  or  the  backwoods  of  Canada. 

There  are,  perhaps,  degrees  of  silence.  Godefroid,  struck 
already  by  the  tranquillity  of  the  Rue  Massillon  and  Rue  Cha- 
noinesse,  where  a  vehicle  passes  perhaps  twice  in  a  month, 
struck  too  by  the  stillness  of  the  courtyard  and  the  tower, 
may  have  felt  himself  at  the  very  heart  of  silence,  in  this 
drawing-room,  hedged  round  by  so  many  old  streets,  old 
courtyards,  and  old  walls. 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  13 

This  part  of  the  Island,  called  the  Cloister,  preserves  the 
character  common  to  all  cloisters  ;  it  is  damp,  and  cold,  and 
monastic ;  silence  reigns  there  unbroken,  even  during  the 
noisiest  hours  of  the  day.  It  may  also  be  remarked  that  this 
part  of  the  city,  lying  between  the  body  of  the  cathedral  and 
the  river,  is  to  the  north  and  under  the  shadow  of  Notre- 
Dame.  The  east  wind  loses  itself  there,  unchecked  by  any 
obstacle,  and  the  fogs  from  the  Seine  are  to  some  extent  en- 
trapped by  the  blackened  walls  of  the  ancient  metropolitan 
church. 

So  no  one  will  be  surprised  at  the  feeling  that  came  over 
Godefroid  on  finding  himself  in  this  ancient  abode,  and  in 
the  presence  of  four  persons  as  silent  and  as  solemn  as  every- 
thing around  them.  He  did  not  look  about  him;  his  curiosity 
centred  in  Madame  de  la  Chanterie,  whose  name  even  had 
already  puzzled  him. 

This  lady  was  evidently  a  survival  from  another  century, 
not  to  say  another  world.  She  had  a  rather  sweet  face,  with 
a  soft,  coldly-colored  complexion,  an  aquiline  nose,  a  benign 
brow,  hazel  eyes,  and  a  double  chin,  the  whole  framed  in 
curls  of  silver  hair.  Her  dress  could  only  be  described  by 
the  old  name  of  fourrcau  (literally  a  sheath,  a  tightly  fitting 
dress),  so  tightly  was  she  cased  in  it,  in  the  fashion  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  The  material — silk  of  carmelite  gray, 
finely  and  closely  striped  with  green — seemed  to  have  come 
down  from  the  same  date ;  the  bodice,  cut  low,  was  hidden 
under  a  mantilla  of  richer  silk,*  flounced  with  black  lace,  and 
fastened  at  the  bosom  with  a  brooch  containing  a  miniature. 
Her  feet,  shod  in  black  velvet  shoes,  rested  on  a  little  stool. 
Madame  de  la  Chanterie,  like  her  maidservant,  was  knitting 
stockings,  and  had  a  knitting-pin  stuck  through  her  waving 
hair  under  her  lace  cap. 

"Have  you  seen  Monsieur  Millet  ?"  she  asked  Godefroid 
in  the  head  voice  peculiar  to  dowagers  of  the  Saint-Germain 
*  Poult-de-soie. 


14  THE   SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

suburb,  as  if  to  invite  him  to  speak,  seeing  that  he  was  almost 
thunderstruck. 

"Yes,  madame." 

"  I  am  afraid  the  rooms  will  hardly  suit  you,"  she  went  on, 
observing  that  her  proposed  tenant  was  dressed  with  elegance 
in  clothes  that  were  new  and  smart. 

Godefroid,  in  fact,  was  wearing  patent-leather  shoes,  yel- 
low gloves,  handsome  shirt-studs,  and  a  neat  watch-chain 
passed  through  the  button-hole  of  a  black  silk  vest  sprigged 
with  blue. 

Madame  de  la  Chanterie  took  a  small  silver  whistle  out  of 
her  pocket  and  blew  it.  The  woman-servant  came  in. 

"  Manon,  child,  show  this  gentleman  the  rooms.  Will 
you,  my  dear  friend,  accompany  him  ?  "  she  said  to  the  priest. 
"And  if  by  any  chance  the  rooms  should  suit  you,"  she 
added,  rising  and  looking  at  Godefroid,  "we  will  afterward 
discuss  the  terms." 

Godefroid  bowed  and  went  out.  He  heard  the  iron  rattle 
of  a  bunch  of  keys  which  Manon  took  out  of  a  drawer,  and 
saw  her  light  a  candle  in  a  large  brass  candlestick. 

Manon  led  the  way  without  speaking  a  word.  When  he 
found  himself  on  the  stairs  again,  climbing  to  the  upper  floors, 
he  doubted  the  reality  of  things  ;  he  felt  dreaming  though 
awake,  and  saw  the  whole  world  of  fantastic  romance  such  as 
he  had  read  of  in  his  hours  of  idleness.  And  any  Parisian 
dropped  here,  as  he  was,  out  of  the  modern  city  with  its 
luxurious  houses  and  furniture,  its  glittering  restaurants  and 
theatres,  and  all  the  stirring  heart  of  Paris,  would  have  felt  as 
he  did.  The  single  candle  carried  by  the  servant  lighted  the 
winding-stair  but  dimly ;  spiders  had  hung  it  with  their  dusty 
webs. 

Manon's  dress  consisted  of  a  skirt  broadly  pleated  and 
made  of  coarse  woolen  stuff ;  the  bodice  was  cut  square  at  the 
neck,  behind  and  before,  and  all  her  clothes  seemed  to  move 
in  a  piece.  Having  reached  the  third  floor,  which  had  been 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  15 

the  fourth,  Manon  stopped,  turned  the  springs  of  an  antique 
lock,  and  opened  a  door  painted  in  coarse  imitation  of  knotted 
mahogany. 

"  There  !  "  said  she,  leading  the  way. 

Who  had  lived  in  these  rooms?  A  miser,  an  artist,  who 
had  died  of  want,  a  cynic  indifferent  to  the  world,  or  a  pious 
man  who  was  alien  to  it?  Any  one  of  the  four  seemed  pos- 
sible, as  the  visitor  smelt  the  very  odor  of  poverty,  saw  the 
greasy  stains  on  wall-papers  covered  with  a  layer  of  smoke,  the 
blackened  ceilings,  the  windows  with  their  small  dusty  panes, 
the  brown-tiled  floor,  the  wainscot  sticky  with  a  deposit  of  fog. 
A  damp  chill  came  down  the  fireplaces,  faced  with  carved  stone- 
work that  had  been  painted,  and  with  mirrors  framed  in  the 
seventeenth  century.  The  rooms  were  at  the  angle  of  a  square, 
as  the  house  stood,  inclosing  the  inner  courtyard,  but  this 
Godefroid  could  not  see,  as  it  was  dark. 

"  Who  used  to  live  here  ?  "  Godefroid  asked  of  the  priest. 

"  A  councilor  to  the  Parlement,  madame's  granduncle,  a 
Monsieur  de  Boisfrelon.  He  had  been  quite  childish  ever 
since  the  Revolution,  and  died  in  1832  at  the  age  of  ninety- 
six ;  madame  could  not  bear  the  idea  of  seeing  a  stranger  in 
the  rooms  so  soon  ;  still,  she  cannot  endure  the  loss  of  rent." 

"  Oh,  and  madame  will  have  the  place  cleaned  and  fur- 
nished, to  be  all  monsieur  could  wish,"  added  Manon. 

"It  will  only  depend  on  how  you  wish  to  arrange  the 
rooms,"  said  the  priest.  "They  can  be  made  into  a  nice 
sitting-room  and  a  large  bedroom  and  dressing-room,  and  the 
two  small  rooms  round  the  corner  are  large  enough  for  a 
spacious  study.  That  is  how  my  rooms  are  arranged  below 
this,  and  those  on  the  next  floor." 

"Yes,"  said  Manon;  "Monsieur  Alain's  rooms  are  just 
like  these,  only  that  they  look  out  on  the  tower." 

"  I  think  I  had  better  see  the  rooms  again  by  daylight," 
said  Godefroid  shyly. 

"  Perhaps  so,"  said  Manon, 


16  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

The  priest  and  Godefroid  went  downstairs  again,  leaving 
Manon  to  lock  up,  and  she  then  followed  to  light  them  down. 
Then,  when  he  was  in  the  drawing-room,  Godefroid,  having 
recovered  himself,  could,  while  talking  to  Madame  de  la 
Chanterie,  study  the  place,  the  personages,  and  the  sur- 
roundings. 

The  window-curtains  of  this  drawing-room  were  of  old  red 
satin ;  there  was  a  cornice-valance,  and  the  curtains  were 
looped  with  silk  cord ;  the  red  tiles  of  the  floor  showed  be- 
yond an  ancient  tapestry  carpet  that  was  too  small  to  cover  it 
entirely.  The  woodwork  was  painted  stone-color.  The  ceil- 
ing, divided  down  the  middle  by  a  joist  starting  from  the 
chimney,  looked  like  an  addition  lately  conceded  to  modern 
luxury ;  the  easy-chairs  were  of  wood  painted  white,  with  tap- 
estry seats.  A  shabby  clock,  standing  between  two  gilt  candle- 
sticks, adorned  the  mantel.  An  old  table  with  stag's  feet 
stood  by  Madame  de  la  Chanterie,  and  on  it  were  her  balls  of 
wool  in  a  wicker  basket.  A  clockwork  lamp  threw  light  on 
the  picture. 

The  three  men,  sitting  as  rigid,  motionless,  and  speechless 
as  bronzes,  had,  like  Madame  de  la  Chanterie,  evidently 
ceased  speaking  on  hearing  the  stranger  return.  Their  faces 
were  perfectly  cold  and  reserved,  as  befitted  the  room,  the 
house,  and  the  neighborhood. 

Madame  de  la  Chanterie  agreed  that  Godefroid's  observa- 
tions were  just,  and  said  that  she  had  postponed  doing  any- 
thing till  she  was  informed  of  the  intentions  of  her  lodger,  or 
rather  of  her  boarder ;  for  if  the  lodger  could  conform  to  the 
ways  of  the  household,  he  was  to  board  with  them — but  their 
ways  were  so  unlike  those  of  Paris  life  !  Here,  in  the  Rue 
Chanoinesse,  they  kept  country  hours ;  every  one,  as  a 
rule,  had  to  be  in  by  ten  at  night;  noise  was  not  to  be 
endured ;  neither  women  nor  children  were  admitted,  so  that 
their  regular  habits  might  not  be  interfered  with.  No  one, 
perhaps,  but  a  priest  could  agree  to  such  a  rulei  At  any  rate, 


THE   SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  17 

Madame  de  la  Chanterie  wished  for  some  one  who  liked  plain 
living  and  had  few  requirements ;  she  could  only  afford  the 
most  necessary  furniture  in  the  rooms.  Monsieur  Alain  was 
satisfied,  however — and  she  bowed  to  one  of  the  gentlemen — 
and  she  would  do  the  same  for  the  new  lodger  as  for  the  old. 

"But,"  said  the  priest,  "I  do  not  think  that  monsieur  is 
quite  inclined  to  come  and  join  us  in  our  convent." 

"  Indeed  ;  why  not  ?  "  said  Monsieur  Alain.  "  We  are  all 
quite  content,  and  we  all  get  on  very  well." 

"Madame,"  said  Godefroid,  rising,  "I  will  have  the 
honor  of  calling  on  you  again  to-morrow." 

Though  he  was  but  a  young  man,  the  four  old  gentlemen 
and  Madame  de  la  Chanterie  stood  up,  and  the  priest  escorted 
him  to  the  outer  steps.  A  whistle  sounded,  and  at  the  signal 
the  porter  appeared,  lantern  in  hand,  to  conduct  Godefroid  to 
the  street ;  then  he  closed  the  yellow  gate,  as  heavy  as  that 
of  a  prison,  and  covered  with  arabesque  ironwork,  so  old  that 
it  would  be  hard  to  determine  its  date. 

When  Godefroid  found  himself  sitting  in  a  hack,  and  being 
carried  to  the  living  regions  of  Paris,  where  light  and  warmth 
reigned,  all  he  had  just  seen  seemed  like  a  dream ;  and,  as  he 
walked  along  the  Boulevard  des  Italiens,  his  impressions 
already  seemed  as  remote  as  a  memory.  He  could  not  help 
saying  to  himself — 

"  Shall  I  find  those  people  there  to-morrow,  I  wonder?" 

On  the  following  day,  when  he  woke  in  the  midst  of  the 
elegance  of  modern  luxury  and  the  refinements  of  English 
comfort,  Godefroid  recalled  all  the  details  of  his  visit  to  the 
Cloister  of  Notre-Dame,  and  came  to  some  conclusions  in  his 
mind  as  to  the  things  he  had  seen  there.  The  three  gentle- 
men, whose  appearance,  attitude,  and  silence  had  left  an  im- 
pression on  him,  were  no  doubt  boarders,  as  well  as  the  priest. 
Madame  de  la  Chanterie's  gravity  seemed  to  him  to  be  the 
result  of  the  reserved  dignity  with  which  she  had  endured 
2 


18  THE   SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

some  great  sorrow.  And  yet,  in  spite  of  the  explanations  he 
gave  himself,  Godefroid  could  not  help  feeling  that  there  was 
an  air  of  mystery  in  those  uncommunicative  faces.  He  cast 
a  glance  at  his  furniture  to  choose  what  he  could  keep,  what 
he  thought  indispensable ;  but,  transporting  them  in  fancy  to 
the  horrible  rooms  in  the  Rue  Chanoinesse,  he  could  not  help 
laughing  at  the  grotesque  contrast  they  would  make  there, 
and  determined  to  sell  everything,  and  pay  away  so  much  as 
they  might  bring;  leaving  the  furnishing  of  the  rooms  to 
Madame  de  la  Chanterie.  He  longed  for  a  new  life,  and  the 
objects  that  could  recall  his  old  existence  must  be  bad  for  him. 
In  his  craving  for  transformation — for  his  was  one  of  those 
natures  which  rush  forward  at  once  with  a  bound,  instead  of 
approaching  a  situation  step  by  step  as  others  do — he  was 
seized,  as  he  sat  at  breakfast,  by  an  idea  :  he  would  realize  his 
fortune,  pay  his  debts,  and  place  the  surplus  with  the  banking 
firm  his  father  had  done  business  with. 

This  banking  house  was  that  of  MM.  Mongenod  &  Co.,  estab- 
lished in  Paris  since  1816  or  1817,  a  firm  whose  reputation 
had  never  been  blown  on  in  the  midst  of  the  commercial  de- 
pravity which  at  this  time  had  blighted,  more  or  less,  several 
great  Paris  houses.  Thus,  in  spite  of  their  immense  wealth, 
the  houses  of  Nucingen  and  du  Tillet,  of  Keller  Brothers,  of 
Palma  &  Co.,  suffered  under  a  secret  dis-esteem  whispered,  as 
it  were,  between  lip  and  ear.  Hideous  transactions  had  led 
to  such  splendid  results;  and  political  successes,  nay,  mon- 
archical principles,  had  overgrown  such  foul  beginnings,  that 
no  one  in  1834  thought  for  a  moment  of  the  mud  in  which 
the  roots  were  set  of  such  majestic  trees — the  upholders  of 
the  State.  At  the  same  time,  there  was  not  one  of  these 
bankers  that  did  not  feel  aggrieved  by  praises  of  the  house  of 
Mongenod. 

The  Mongenods,  following  the  example  of  English  bankers, 
make  no  display  of  wealth ;  they  do  everything  very  quietly, 
and  carry  on  their  business  with  such  prudence,  shrewdness, 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  19 

and  honesty  as  allow  them  to  operate  with  certainty  from  one 
end  of  the  world  to  the  other. 

The  present  head  of  the  house,  Frederic  Mongenod,  is 
brother-in-law  to  the  Vicomte  de  Fontaine.  Thus  his  numer- 
ous family  is  connected,  through  the  Baron  de  Fontaine,  with 
Monsieur  Grossetete,  the  receiver-general  (brother  to  the 
Grossetete  &  Co.  of  Limoges),  with  the  Vandenesses,  and 
with  Planat  de  Baudry,  another  receiver-general.  This  rela- 
tionship, after  being  of  the  greatest  service  to  the  late  Monge- 
nod senior  in  his  financial  operations  at  the  time  of  the 
Restoration,  had  gained  him  the  confidence  of  many  of  the 
old  nobility,  whose  capital  and  vast  savings  were  intrusted  to 
his  bank.  Far  from  aiming  at  the  peerage,  like  Keller,  Nuc- 
ingen,  and  du  Tillet,  the  Mongenods  kept  out  of  political  life, 
and  knew  no  more  of  it  than  was  needed  for  banking  business. 

Mongenod's  bank  occupies  a  magnificent  house  in  the  Rue 
de  la  Victoire,  with  a  garden  behind  and  a  courtyard  in  front, 
where  Madame  Mongenod  resided  with  her  two  sons,  with 
whom  she  was  in  partnership.  Madame  la  Vicomtesse  de 
Fontaine  had  taken  out  her  share  on  the  death  of  the  elder 
Mongenod  in  1827.  Frederic  Mongenod,  a  handsome  fellow 
of  about  thirty-five,  with  a  cold  manner,  as  silent  and  re- 
served as  a  Genevese,  and  as  neat  as  an  Englishman,  had  ac- 
quired under  his  father  all  the  qualifications  needed  in  his 
difficult  business.  He  was  more  cultivated  than  most  bankers, 
for  his  education  had  given  him  the  general  knowledge  which 
forms  the  curriculum  of  the  Polytechnic  School  \  and,  like 
many  bankers,  he  had  an  occupation,  a  taste,  outside  his 
regular  business,  a  love  of  physics  and  chemistry.  Mongenod 
junior,  ten  years  younger  than  Frederic,  filled  the  place, 
under  his  elder  brother,  that  a  head-clerk  holds  under  a 
lawyer  or  a  notary  ;  Frederic  was  training  him,  as  he  himself 
had  been  trained  by  his  father,  in  the  scientific  side  of  bank- 
ing, for  a  banker  is  to  money  what  a  writer  is  to  ideas — they 
both  ought  to  know  everything. 


20  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

Godefroid,  as  he  mentioned  his  family  name,  could  see  how 
highly  his  father  had  been  respected,  for  he  was  shown  through 
the  offices  at  once  to  that  next  to  Mongenod's  private  room. 
This  room  was  shut  in  by  glass  doors,  so  that,  in  spite  of  his 
wish  not  to  listen,  Godefroid  overheard  the  conversation  going 
on  within. 

"Madame,  your  account  shows  sixteen  hundred  thousand 
francs  on  both  sides  of  the  balance  sheet,"  Mongenod  the 
younger  was  saying.  "I  know  not  what  my  brother's  views 
may  be ;  he  alone  can  decide  whether  an  advance  of  a  hun- 
dred thousand  francs  is  possible.  You  lacked  prudence.  It 
is  not  wise  to  put  sixteen  hundred  thousand  francs  into  a 
business " 

"Too  loud,  Louis!"  said  a  woman's  voice.  "Your 
brother's  advice  is  never  to  speak  but  in  an  undertone.  There 
may  be  some  one  in  the  little  waiting-room." 

At  this  instant  Frederic  Mongenod  opened  the  door  from 
his  living  rooms  to  his  private  office ;  he  saw  Godefroid,  and 
went  through  to  the  inner  room,  where  he  bowed  respectfully 
to  the  lady  who  was  talking  to  his  brother. 

He  showed  Godefroid  in  first,  saying  as  he  did  so:  "And 
whom  have  I  the  honor  of  addressing?  " 

As  soon  as  Godefroid  had  announced  himself,  Frederic 
offered  him  a  chair;  and  while  the  banker  was  opening  his 
desk,  Louis  Mongenod  and  the  lady,  who  was  none  else  than 
Madame  de  la  Chanterie,  rose  and  went  up  to  Frederic.  Then 
they  all  three  went  into  a  window  recess,  where  they  stood 
talking  to  Madame  Mongenod,  who  was  in  all  the  secrets  of 
the  business.  For  thirty  years  past  this  clever  woman  had 
given  ample  proofs  of  her  capacity,  to  her  husband  first,  now 
to  her  sons,  and  she  was,  in  fact,  an  active  partner  in  the 
house,  signing  for  it  as  they  did.  Godefroid  saw  in  a  pigeon- 
hole a  number  of  boxes,  labeled  "La  Chanterie,"  and  num- 
bered i  to  7. 

When  the  conference  was  ended  by  a  word  from  the  senior 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY.  21 

to  his  brother,  "Well,  then,  go  to  the  cashier,"  Madame  de 
la  Chanterie  turned  round,  saw  Godefroid,  restrained  a  start 
of  surprise,  and  then  asked  a  few  whispered  questions  of  Mon- 
genod,  who  replied  briefly,  also  in  a  low  voice. 

Madame  de  la  Chanterie  wore  thin  prunella  shoes  and  gray 
*  silk  stockings ;  she  had  on  the  same  dress  as  before,  and  was 
wrapped  in  the  Venetian  cloak  that  was  just  coming  into 
fashion  again.  Her  drawn  bonnet  of  green  silk,  in  the  style 
of  a  good  woman's,  was  lined  with  white,  and  her  face  was 
framed  in  flowing  lace.  She  stood  very  erect,  in  an  attitude 
which  bore  witness,  if  not  to  high  birth,  at  any  rate  to  aristo- 
cratic habits.  But  for  her  extreme  affability,  she  would  per- 
haps have  seemed  proud.  In  short,  she  was  very  imposing. 

"It  is  not  so  much  good-luck  as  a  dispensation  of  Provi- 
dence that  has  brought  us  together  here,  monsieur,"  said  she 
I  to  Godefroid.  "  I  was  on  the  point  of  declining  a  boarder 
whose  habits,  as  I  fancied,  were  ill-suited  to  those  of  my  house- 
hold ;  but  Monsieur  Mongenod  has  just  given  me  some  informa- 
tion as  to  your  family  which  is " 
"  Indeed,  madame — monsieur "  said  Godefroid,  ad- 
dressing the  lady  and  the  banker  together,  "  I  have  no  longer 
any  family,  and  I  came  to  ask  advice  of  my  late  father's 
banker  to  arrange  my  affairs  in  accordance  with  a  new  plan 
of  life." 

Godefroid  told  his  story  in  a  few  words,  and  expressed  his 
desire  of  leading  a  new  life. 

"Formerly,"  said  he,  "a  man  in  my  position  would  have 

turned  monk;  but  there  are  now  no  religious  Orders " 

"Go  to  live  with  madame,  if  she  will  accept  you  as  a 
boarder,"  said  Frederic  Mongenod,  after  exchanging  glances 
with  Madame  de  la  Chanterie,  "and  do  not  sell  your  invest- 
ments ;  leave  them  in  my  hands.  Give  me  the  schedule  of 
your  debts ;  I  will  fix  dates  of  payment  with  your  creditors, 
and  you  can  draw  for  your  own  use  a  hundred  and  fifty  francs 
a  month.  It  will  take  about  two  years  to  pay  everything  off. 


22  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY. 

During  those  two  years,  in  the  house  to  which  you  are  going, 
you  will  have  ample  leisure  to  think  of  a  career,  especially 
as  the  people  you  will  be  living  with  can  give  you  good 
advice." 

Louis  Mongenod  came  back  with  a  hundred  thousand-franc 
notes,  which  he  gave  to  Madame  de  la  Chanterie.  Godefroid 
offered  his  arm  to  his  future  landlady,  and  took  her  to  her 
coach. 

"Then  we  shall  meet  again  presently,"  said  she  in  a  kind 
tone. 

"At  what  hour  shall  you  be  at  home,  madame?"  said 
Godefroid. 

"In  two  hours'  time." 

"I  have  time  to  get  rid  of  my  furniture,"  said  he  with  a 
bow. 

During  the  few  minutes  while  Madame  de  la  Chanterie's 
arm  had  lain  on  his  as  they  walked  side  by  side,  Godefroid 
could  not  see  beyond  the  halo  cast  about  this  woman  by  the 
words,  "Your  account  stands  at  sixteen  hundred  thousand 
francs,"  spoken  by  Louis  Mongenod  to  a  lady  who  buried 
her  life  in  the  depths  of  the  Cloister  of  Notre-Dame. 

This  idea,  "She  must  be  rich!"  had  entirely  changed 
his  view  of  things.  "  What  age  is  she,  I  wonder  ?  " 

And  he  had  a  vision  of  a  romance  in  his  residence  in  the 
Rue  Chanoinesse. 

"  She  looks  like  an  aristocrat ;  does  she  dabble  in  banking 
affairs?  "  he  asked  himself. 

And  in  our  day  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  men  out  of 
a  thousand  would  have  thought  of  the  possibility  of  marrying 
this  woman. 

A  furniture  dealer,  who  was  also  a  decorator,  but  chiefly  an 
agent  for  furnished  flats,  gave  about  three  thousand  francs  for 
all  that  Godefroid  wished  to  dispose  of,  leaving  the  things  in 
his  rooms  for  the  few  days  needed  to  clean  and  arrange  the 
dreadful  rooms  in  the  Rue  Chanoinesse. 


THE   SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY.  23 

Thither  the  brain-sick  youth  at  once  repaired  ;  he  called  in 
a  painter,  recommended  by  Madame  de  la  Chanterie,  who 
undertook  for  a  moderate  sum  to  whitewash  the  ceilings,  clean 
the  windows,  paint  the  wainscoting  like  gray  maple,  and  color 
the  floors,  within  a  week.  Godefroid  measured  the  rooms  to 
carpet  them  all  alike  with  green  drugget  of  the  cheapest  de- 
scription. He  wished  everything  to  be  uniform  and  as  simple 
as  possible  in  his  cell. 

Madame  de  la  Chanterie  approved  of  this.  With  Manon's 
assistance  she  calculated  how  much  white  dimity  would  be 
needed  for  the  window  curtains  and  for  a  simple  iron  bed- 
stead ;  then  she  undertook  to  procure  the  stuff  and  to  have 
them  made  for  a  price  so  small  as  to  amaze  Godefroid.  With 
the  new  furniture  he  would  send  in,  his  apartments  would  not 
cost  him  more  than  six  hundred  francs. 

"  So  I  can  take  about  a  thousand  to  Monsieur  Mongenod." 

"  We  here  lead  a  Christian  life,"  said  Madame  de  la  Chan- 
terie, "which  is,  as  you  know,  quite  out  of  keeping  with 
much  superfluity,  and  I  fear  you  still  preserve  too  many." 

As  she  gave  her  new  boarder  this  piece  of  advice,  she 
glanced  at  the  diamond  that  sparkled  in  a  ring  through  which 
the  ends  of  Godefroid's  blue  necktie  were  drawn. 

"I  only  mention  this,"  she  added,  "because  I  perceive 
that  you  are  preparing  to  break  with  the  dissipated  life  of 
which  you  spoke  with  regret  to  Monsieur  Mongenod." 

Godefroid  gazed  at  Madame  de  la  Chanterie,  listening  with 
delight  to  the  harmony  of  her  clear  voice  ;  he  studied  her  face, 
which  was  perfectly  colorless,  worthy  to  be  that  of  one  of  the 
grave,  cold  Dutchwomen  so  faithfully  depicted  by  the  painters 
of  the  Flemish  school,  faces  on  which  a  wrinkle  would  be 
impossible. 

"  Plump  and  fair !  "  thought  he,  as  he  went  away.  "  Still, 
her  hair  is  white " 

Godefroid,  like  all  weak  natures,  had  readily  accustomed 
himself  to  the  idea  of  a  new  life,  believing  it  would  be  perfect 


24  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

happiness,  and  he  was  eager  to  settle  in  the  Rue  Chanoinesse ; 
nevertheless,  he  had  a  gleam  of  prudence — or,  if  you  like,  of 
suspicion.  Two  days  before  moving  in  he  went  again  to 
Monsieur  Mongenod  to  ask  for  further  information  concern- 
ing the  household  he  was  about  joining.  During  the  few 
minutes  he  had  spent  now  and  then  in  his  future  home,  to  see 
what  alterations  were  being  made,  he  had  observed  the  going 
and  coming  of  several  persons  whose  appearance  and  manner, 
without  any  air  of  mystery,  suggested  that  they  were  busied  in 
the  practice  of  some  profession,  some  secret  occupation  with 
the  residents  in  the  house.  At  this  time  many  plots  were  afoot 
to  help  the  elder  branch  of  Bourbons  to  remount  the  throne, 
and  Godefroid  believed  there  was  some  conspiracy  here. 

But  when  he  found  himself  in  the  banker's  private  room 
and  under  his  searching  eye,  he  was  ashamed  of  himself  as  he 
formulated  his  question  and  saw  a  sardonic  smile  on  Frederic 
Mongenod's  lips. 

"  Madame  la  Baronne  de  la  Chanterie,"  he  replied,  "is one 
of  the  obscurest  but  one  of  the  most  honorable  women  in 
Paris.  Have  you  any  particular  reason  for  asking  for  infor- 
mation?" 

Godefroid  fell  back  on  flat  excuses — he  was  arranging  to 
live  a  long  time  with  these  strangers,  and  it  was  as  well  to 
know  to  whom  he  was  tying  himself,  and  the  like.  But  the 
banker's  smile  only  became  more  and  more  ironical,  and 
Godefroid  more  and  more  ashamed,  till  he  blushed  at  the  step 
he  had  taken,  and  got  nothing  by  it ;  for  he  dared  ask  no 
more  questions  about  Madame  de  la  Chanterie  or  his  fellow- 
boarders. 

Two  days  later,  after  dining  for  the  last  time  at  the  Caf6 
Anglais,  and  seeing  the  two  first  pieces  at  the  Varietes,  at  ten 
o'clock  on  a  Monday  night  he  came  to  sleep  in  the  Rue 
Chanoinesse,  where  Manon  lighted  him  to  his  room. 

Solitude  has  a  charm  somewhat  akin  to  that  of  the  wild  life 


THE   SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY,  25 

of  savages,  which  no  European  ever  gives  up  after  having  once 
tasted  it.  This  may  seem  strange  in  an  age  when  every  one 
lives  so  completely  in  the  sight  of  others  that  everybody  is 
inquisitive  about  everybody  else,  and  that  privacy  will  soon 
have  ceased  to  exist,  so  quickly  do  the  eyes  of  the  Press — the 
modern  Argus — increase  in  boldness  and  intrusiveness ;  and 
yet  the  statement  is  supported  by  the  evidence  of  the  six  first 
Christian  centuries,  when  no  recluse  ever  came  back  to  social 
life  again.  There  are  few  mental  wounds  that  solitude  cannot 
cure.  Thus,  in  the  first  instance,  Godefroid  was  struck  by 
the  calm  and  stillness  of  his  new  abode,  exactly  as  a  tired 
traveler  finds  rest  in  a  bath. 

On  the  day  after  his  arrival  as  a  boarder  with  Madame  de 
la  Chanterie,  he  could  not  help  cross-examining  himself  on 
finding  he  was  thus  cut  off  from  everything,  even  from  Paris, 
though  he  remained  under  the  shadow  of  its  cathedral.  Here, 
stripped  of  every  social  vanity,  there  would  henceforth  be 
no  witnesses  to  his  deeds  but  his  conscience  and  his  fellow- 
boarders.  This  was  leaving  the  beaten  highway  of  the  world 
for  an  unknown  track ;  and  whither  would  the  track  lead 
him  ?  To  what  occupation  would  he  find  himself  committed  ? 

He  had  been  lost  in  such  reflections  for  a  couple  of  hours, 
when  Manon,  the  only  servant  of  the  establishment,  knocked 
at  his  door  and  told  him  that  the  second  breakfast  was  served; 
they  were  waiting  for  him.  Twelve  was  striking. 

The  new  boarder  went  downstairs  at  once,  prompted  by  his 
curiosity  to  see  the  five  persons  with  whom  he  was  thence- 
forth to  live.  On  entering  the  drawing-room,  he  found  all 
the  residents  in  the  house  standing  up  and  dressed  precisely 
as  they  had  been  on  the  day  when  he  had  first  come  to  make 
inquiries. 

"  Did  you  sleep  well?"  asked  Madame  de  la  Chanterie. 

"  I  did  not  wake  till  ten  o'clock,"  said  Godefroid,  bowing 
to  the  four  gentlemen,  who  returned  the  civility  with  much 
gravity. 


26  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY. 

11  We  quite  expected  it,"  said  the  old  man,  known  as  Mon- 
sieur Alain,  and  he  smiled. 

"Manon  spoke  of  the  second  breakfast,"  Godefroid  went 
on.  "  I  have,  I  fear,  already  broken  one  of  your  rules  with- 
out intending  it.  At  what  hour  do  you  rise?"  addressing 
the  lady. 

"  We  do  not  get  up  quite  by  the  rule  of  the  monks  of  old," 
replied  Madame  de  la  Chanterie  graciously,  "but,  like  work- 
men, at  six  in  winter  and  at  half-past  three  in  summer.  We 
also  go  to  bed  by  the  rule  of  the  sun  ;  we  are  always  asleep 
by  nine  in  winter,  by  half-past  eleven  in  summer.  We  drink 
some  milk,  which  is  brought  from  our  own  farm,  after  prayers, 
all  but  Monsieur  1'Abbe  de  Veze,  who  performs  early  mass  at 
Notre-Dame — at  six  in  summer,  at  seven  in  winter — and  these 
gentlemen  as  well  as  I,  your  humble  servant,  attend  that 
service  every  day." 

Madame  de  la  Chanterie  finished  this  speech  at  table,  where 
her  five  guests  were  now  seated. 

The  dining-room,  painted  gray  throughout,  and  decorated 
with  carved  wood  of  a  design  showing  the  taste  of  Louis  XIV., 
opened  out  of  the  sort  of  anteroom  where  Manon  sat,  and  ran 
parallel  with  Madame  de  la  Chanterie's  room,  adjoining  the 
drawing-room,  no  doubt.  There  was  no  ornament  but  an  old 
clock.  The  furniture  consisted  of  six  chairs,  their  oval  backs 
upholstered  with  worsted-work  evidently  done  by  Madame  de 
la  Chanterie,  of  two  mahogany  sideboards,  and  a  table  to 
match,  on  which  Manon  placed  the  breakfast  without  spreading 
a  cloth.  The  breakfast,  of  monastic  frugality,  consisted  of  a 
small  turbot  with  white  sauce,  potatoes,  a  salad,  and  four 
dishes  of  fruit :  peaches,  grapes,  strawberries,  and  green 
almonds ;  then,  by  way  of  side-dishes,  there  was  honey  served 
in  the  comb  as  in  Switzerland,  beside  butter,  radishes,  cucum- 
bers, and  sardines.  The  meal  was  served  in  china  sprigged 
with  small  blue  cornflowers  and  green  leaves,  a  pattern  which 
was  no  doubt  luxuriously  fashionable  in  the  time  of  Louis 


THE   SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  27 

XVI.,  but  which  the  increasing  demands  of  the  present  day 
have  made  common. 

"It  is  a  fast  day  !  "  observed  Monsieur  Alain.  "  Since  we 
go  to  mass  every  morning,  you  may  suppose  that  we  yield 
blindly  to  all  the  practices  of  the  church,  even  the  strictest." 

"And  you  will  begin  by  following  our  example,"  added 
Madame  de  la  Chanterie,  with  a  side-glance  at  Godefroid, 
whom  she  had  placed  by  her  side. 

Of  the  for~  boarders,  Godefroid  already  knew  the  names 
of  the  Abbe  de  Veze  and  Monsieur  Alain ;  but  he  yet  had  to 
learn  those  of  the  other  two  gentlemen.  They  sat  in  silence, 
eating  with  the  absorbed  attention  that  the  pious  seem  to 
devote  to  the  smallest  details  of  their  meals. 

"And  does  this  fine  fruit  also  come  from  your  farm, 
madame  ?  "  Godefroid  inquired. 

"Yes,  monsieur,"  she  replied.  "  We  have  our  little  model 
farm,  just  as  the  Government  has ;  it  is  our  country  house, 
about  three  leagues  from  hence,  on  the  road  to  Italy,  near 
Villeneuve-Saint-Georges. ' ' 

"  It  is  a  little  estate  that  belongs  to  us  all,  and  will  become 
the  property  of  the  survivor,"  said  the  worthy  Monsieur 
Alain. 

"Oh,  it  is  quite  inconsiderable,"  added  Madame  de  la 
Chanterie,  who  seemed  afraid  lest  Godefroid  should  regard 
this  speech  as  a  bait. 

"There  are  thirty  acres  of  arable  land,"  said  one  of  the 
men  unknown  to  Godefroid,  "six  acres  of  meadow,  and  an 
inclosure  of  about  four  acres  of  garden,  in  the  midst  of  which 
our  house  stands;  in  front  of  it  is  the  farm." 

"But  such  an  estate  must  be  worth  above  a  hundred  thousand 
francs,"  observed  Godefroid. 

"Oh,  we  get  nothing  out  of  it  but  our  produce,"  replied 
the  same  speaker. 

He  was  a  tall  man,  thin  and  grave.  At  a  first  glance  he 
seemed  to  have  served  in  the  army ;  his  white  hair  showed 


28  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY. 

that  he  was  past  sixty,  and  his  face  revealed  great  sorrows  and 
religious  resignation. 

The  second  stranger,  who  appeared  to  be  a  sort  of  com- 
pound of  a  master  of  rhetoric  and  a  man  of  business,  was  of 
middle  height,  stout  but  active,  and  his  face  bore  traces  of  a 
joviality  peculiar  to  the  notaries  and  attorneys  of  Paris. 

The  dress  of  all  four  men  was  marked  by  the  extreme  neat- 
ness due  to  personal  care;  and  Manon's  hand  was  visible  in 
the  smallest  details  of  their  raiment.  Their  coats  were  per- 
haps ten  years  old,  and  preserved,  as  a  priest's  clothes  are 
preserved,  by  the  occult  powers  of  a  housekeeper  and  by  con- 
stant use.  These  men  wore,  as  it  were,  the  livery  of  a  system 
of  life ;  they  were  all  the  slaves  of  the  same  thought,  their 
looks  spoke  the  same  word,  their  faces  wore  an  expression  of 
gentle  resignation,  of  inviting  tranquillity. 

"Am  I  indiscreet,  madame,"  said  Godefroid,  "to  ask  the 
names  of  these  gentlemen  ?  I  am  quite  prepared  to  tell  them 
all  about  myself;  may  I  not  know  as  much  about  them  as 
circumstances  allow? " 

"This,"  said  Madame  de  la  Chanterie,  introducing  the 
tall,  thin  man,  "  is  Monsieur  Nicolas ;  he  is  a  retired  colonel 
of  the  Gendarmes,  ranking  as  a  major-general.  And  this 
gentleman,"  she  went  on,  turning  to  the  little  stout  man, 
"  was  formerly  councilor  to  the  Bench  of  the  King's  Court 
in  Paris;  he  retired  from  his  functions  in  August,  1830;  his 
name  is  Monsieur  Joseph.  Though  you  joined  us  but  yester- 
day, I  may  tell  you  that  in  the  world  Monsieur  Nicolas  bore 
the  name  of  Marquis  de  Montauran,  and  Monsieur  Joseph 
that  of  Lecamus,  Baron  de  Tresnes ;  but  to  us,  as  to  the  outer 
world,  these  names  no  longer  exist.  These  gentlemen  have 
no  heirs;  they  have  anticipated  the  oblivion  that  must  fall 
on  their  families ;  they  are  simply  Monsieur  Nicolas  and 
Monsieur  Joseph,  as  you  will  be  simply  Monsieur  Godefroid." 

As  he  heard  these  two  names — one  so  famous  in  the  history 
of  Royalism  from  the  disaster  which  put  an  end  to  the  rising 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY.  29 

of  the  Chouans  at  the  beginning  of  the  Consulate,  the  other  so 
long  respected  in  the  records  of  the  old  Parlement — Godefroid 
could  not  repress  a  start  of  surprise;  but  when  he  looked  at 
these  survivors  from  the  wreck  of  the  two  greatest  institutions 
of  the  fallen  monarchy,  he  could  not  detect  the  slightest 
movement  of  feature  or  change  of  countenance  that  betrayed 
a  worldly  emotion.  These  two  men  did  not  or  would  not 
remember  what  they  once  had  been.  This  was  Godefroid's 
first  lesson. 

"Each  name,  gentlemen,  is  a  chapter  of  history,"  said  he 
respectfully. 

"The  history  of  our  own  time,"  said  Monsieur  Joseph, 
"of  mere  ruins." 

"You  are  in  good  company,"  said  Monsieur  Alain,  smiling. 

He  can  be  described  in  two  words :  he  was  a  middle-class 
Paris  citizen  ;  a  worthy  man  with  the  face  of  a  calf,  dignified 
by  white  hairs,  but  insipid  with  its  eternal  smile. 

As  to  the  priest,  the  Abbe  de  Veze,  his  position  was  all 
sufficient.  The  priest  who  fulfills  his  mission  is  recognizable 
at  the  first  glance  when  his  eyes  meet  yours. 

What  chiefly  struck  Godefroid  from  the  first  was  the  pro- 
found respect  shown  by  the  boarders  to  Madame  de  la  Chan- 
terie ;  all  of  them,  even  the  priest,  notwithstanding  the  sacred 
dignity  conferred  by  his  functions,  behaved  to  her  as  to  a 
queen.  He  also  noted  the  temperance  of  each  guest;  they 
ate  solely  for  the  sake  of  nourishment.  Madame  de  la  Chan- 
terie,  like  the  rest,  took  but  a  single  peach  and  half  a  bunch 
of  grapes;  but  she  begged  the  new-comer  not  to  restrict  him- 
self in  the  same  way,  offering  him  every  dish  in  turn. 

Godefroid's  curiosity  was  excited  to  the  highest  pitch  by 
this  beginning.  After  the  meal  they  returned  to  the  drawing- 
room,  where  he  was  left  to  himself;  Madame  de  la  Chanterie 
and  her  four  friends  held  a  little  privy  council  in  a  window 
recess.  This  conference,  in  which  no  animation  was  dis- 
played, lasted  for  about  half  an  hour.  They  talked  in  under- 


30  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

tones,  exchanging  remarks  which  each  seemed  to  have  thought 
out  beforehand.  Now  and  again  Monsieur  Alain  and  Mon- 
sieur Joseph  consulted  their  pocketbooks,  turning  over  the 
leaves. 

"You  will  see  to  the  faubourg,"  said  Madame  de  la  Chan- 
terie  to  Monsieur  Nicolas,  who  went  away. 

These  were  the  first  words  Godefroid  could  overhear., 

"And  you  to  the  Saint-Marceau  Quarter,"  she  went  on, 
addressing  Monsieur  Joseph. 

"  Will  you  take  the  Saint-Germain  suburb  and  try  to  find 
what  we  need  ?  ' '  she  added  to  the  Abbe  de  Veze,  who  at  once 
went  off.  "And  you,  my  dear  Alain,"  she  added  with  a 
smile,  "  look  into  matters.  To-day's  business  is  all  settled," 
said  she,  returning  to  Godefroid. 

She  sat  down  in  her  armchair,  and  took  from  a  little  work- 
table  some  under-linen  ready  cut  out,  on  which  she  began 
to  sew  as  if  working  against  time. 

Godefroid,  lost  in  conjectures,  and  seeing  in  all  this  a 
Royalist  conspiracy,  took  the  lady's  speech  as  introductory, 
and,  seating  himself  by  her  side,  watched  her  closely.  He 
was  struck  by  her  singular  skill  in  sewing;  while  everything 
about  her  proclaimed  the  great  lady,  she  had  the  peculiar 
deftness  of  a  paid  seamstress ;  for  every  one  can  distinguish, 
by  certain  tricks  of  working,  the  habits  of  a  professional  from 
those  of  an  amateur. 

"You  sew,"  said  Godefroid,  "as  if  you  were  used  to  the 
business." 

"Alas!"  she  said,  without  looking  up,  "I  have  done  it 
ere  now  from  necessity " 

Two  large  tears  rose  to  the  old  woman's  eyes,  and  rolled 
down  her  cheeks  on  to  the  work  she  held. 

"Pray,  forgive  me,  madame  !  "  cried  Godefroid. 

Madame  de  la  Chanterie  looked  at  her  new  inmate,  and 
saw  on  his  features  such  an  expression  of  regret,  that  she 
nodded  to  him  kindly.  Then,  after  wiping  her  eyes,  she 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  31 

recovered  the  composure  that  characterized  her  face,  which 
was  not  so  much  cold  as  chastened. 

"You  here  find  yourself,  Monsieur  Godefroid — for,  as  you 
know  already,  you  will  be  called  only  by  your  Christian  name 
— amid  the  wreckage  from  a  great  storm.  We  have  all  been 
stricken  and  wounded  to  the  heart  through  family  interests  or 
damaged  fortunes,  by  the  forty  years'  hurricane  that  overthrew 
royalty  and  religion,  and  scattered  to  the  winds  the  elements 
that  constituted  France  as  it  was  of  old.  Words  which  seem 
but  trivial  bear  a  sting  for  us,  and  that  is  the  reason  of  the 
silence  that  reigns  here.  We  rarely  speak  of  ourselves ;  we 
have  forgotten  what  we  were,  and  have  found  means  of  sub- 
stituting a  new  life  for  the  old  life.  It  was  because  I  fancied, 
from  your  revelation  to  the  Mongenods,  that  there  was  some 
resemblance  between  your  situation  and  our  own,  that  I  per- 
suaded my  four  friends  to  receive  you  among  us ;  in  fact,  we 
were  anxious  to  find  another  recluse  for  our  convent.  But 
what  do  you  propose  to  do  ?  We  do  not  enter  on  solitude 
without  some  stock  of  moral  purpose." 

"  Madame,  as  I  hear  you  speak,  I  shall  be  too  happy  to 
accept  you  as  the  arbiter  of  my  destiny." 

"  That  is  speaking  like  a  man  of  the  world,"  said  she. 
"You  are  trying  to  flatter  me — a  woman  of  sixty  !  My  dear 
boy,"  she  went  on,  "you  are,  you  must  know,  among  people 
who  believe  firmly  in  God,  who  have  all  felt  His  hand,  and 
who  have  given  themselves  up  to  Him  almost  as  completely 
as  do  the  Trappists.  Have  you  ever  observed  the  assurance 
of  a  true  priest  when  he  has  given  himself  to  the  Lord,  when 
he  hearkens  to  His  voice  and  strives  to  be  a  docile  instrument 
under  the  fingers  of  Providence?  He  has  shed  all  vanity,  all 
self-consciousness,  all  the  feelings  which  cause  constant  offenses 
to  the  worldly  ;  his  quiescence  is  as  complete  as  that  of  the 
fatalist,  his  resignation  enables  him  to  endure  all  things. 
The  true  priest — an  Abbe  de  Veze — is  like  a  child  with  h;s 
mother;  for  the  church,  my  dear  sir,  is  a  good  mother. 


32  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY. 

Well,  a  man  may  be  a  priest  without  a  tonsure;  not  all  priests 
are  in  orders.  If  we  devote  ourselves  to  doing  good,  we  imi- 
tate the  good  priest,  we  obey  God  !  I  am  not  preaching  to 
you;  I  do  not  want  to  convert  you;  I  am  only  explaining 
our  life." 

"Instruct  me,  madame,"  said  Godefroid,  quite  conquered. 
"As  I  would  wish  not  to  fail  in  any  single  particular  of  your 
rules." 

"You  would  find  that  too  much  to  do;  you  will  learn  by 
degrees.  Above  all  things,  never  speak  here  of  your  past 
misfortunes,  which  are  mere  childish  vexations  as  compared 
with  the  terrible  catastrophes  with  which  God  has  stricken 
those  with  whom  you  are  now  living " 

All  the  time  she  spoke,  Madame  de  la  Chanterie  went  on 
pulling  her  thread  through  with  distracting  regularity;  but  at 
this  full  stop  she  raised  her  head  and  looked  at  Godefroid  ;  she 
saw  that  he  was  spellbound  by  the  thrilling  sweetness  of  her 
voice,  which  had  indeed  a  sort  of  apostolic  unction.  The 
young  sufferer  was  gazing  with  admiration  at  the  really  extra- 
ordinary appearance  of  this  woman,  whose  face  was  radiant. 
A  faint  flush  tinged  her  wax-white  cheeks,  her  eyes  sparkled,  a 
youthful  soul  gave  life  to  the  wrinkles  that  had  acquired 
sweetness,  and  everything  about  her  invited  affection.  Gode- 
froid sat  measuring  the  depth  of  the  gulf  that  parted  this 
woman  from  vulgar  souls ;  he  saw  that  she  had  attained  to  an 
inaccessible  height,  whither  religion  had  guided  her ;  and  he 
was  still  too  much  of  the  world  not  to  be  stung  to  the  quick, 
not  to  long  to  go  down  into  that  gulf  and  climb  to  the  sharp 
peak  where  Madame  de  la  Chanterie  stood,  and  to  stand  by 
her  side.  While  he  gave  himself  up  to  a  thorough  study  of 
this  woman,  he  related  to  her  all  the  mortifications  of  his  life, 
all  he  could  not  say  at  Mongenod's,  where  his  self-betrayal 
had  been  limited  to  a  statement  of  his  position. 

"Poor  child!  " 

This   motherly   exclamation,    dropping   from    the   lips  of 


THE   SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  33 

Madame  de  la  Chanterie,  fell,  from  time  to  time,  like  healing 
balm,  on  the  young  man's  heart. 

"  What  can  I  find  to  take  the  place  of  so  many  hopes  de- 
ceived, of  so  much  disappointed  affection?"  said  he  at  last, 
looking  at  the  lady,  who  seemed  lost  in  reverie.  "  I  came 
here,"  he  went  on,  "to  reflect  and  make  up  my  mind.  I 
have  lost  my  mother — will  you  take  her  place " 

"But,"  said  she,  "will  you  show  me  a  son's  obedience?" 

"Yes,  if  you  can  show  me  the  tenderness  that  exacts  it." 

"  Very  well ;  we  will  try,"  said  she. 

Godefroid  held  out  his  hand  to  take  that  which  the  lady 
offered  him,  and  raised  it  reverently  to  his  lips.  Madame  de 
la  Chanterie's  hands  were  admirably  formed — neither  wrinkled, 
nor  fat,  nor  thin  ;  white  enough  to  move  a  young  woman  to 
envy,  and  of  a  shape  that  a  sculptor  might  copy.  Godefroid 
had  admired  these  hands,  thinking  them  in  harmony  with  the 
enchantment  of  her  voice  and  the  heavenly  blue  of  her  eyes. 

"  Wait  here,"  said  Madame  de  la  Chanterie,  rising  and 
going  into  her  own  room. 

Godefroid  was  deeply  agitated,  and  could  not  think  to 
what  he  was  to  attribute  the  lady's  departure;  he  was  not 
left  long  in  perplexity,  for  she  returned  with  a  book  in  her 
hand. 

"Here,  my  dear  boy,"  said  she,  "are  the  prescriptions  of 
a  great  healer  of  souls.  When  the  things  of  every-day  life  have 
failed  to  give  us  the  happiness  we  looked  for,  we  must  seek  in 
a  higher  life,  and  here  is  the  key  to  that  new  world.  Read  a 
chapter  of  this  book  morning  and  evening ;  but  give  it  your 
whole  attention  ;  study  every  word  as  if  it  were  some  foreign 
tongue.  By  the  end  of  a  month  you  will  be  another  man. 
For  twenty  years  now  have  I  read  a  chapter  every  day,  and 
my  three  friends,  Nicolas,  Alain,  and  Joseph,  would  no  more 
omit  it  than  they  would  miss  going  to  bed  and  getting  up 
again  ;  imitate  them  for  the  love  of  God — for  my  sake,"  she 
said,  with  divine  serenity  and  dignified  confidence, 
3 


34  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY. 

Godefroid  turned  the  book  round  and  read  on  the  back 
"Imitation  of  Jesus  Christ."  The  old  lady's  artlessness  and 
youthful  candor,  her  certainty  that  she  was  doing  him  good, 
confounded  the  ex-dandy.  Madame  de  la  Chanterie  had 
exactly  the  manner,  the  intense  satisfaction,  of  a  woman  who 
might  offer  a  hundred  thousand  francs  to  a  merchant  on  the 
verge  of  bankruptcy. 

"I  have  used  this  book,"  she  said,  "for  six-and-twenty 
years.  God  grant  that  its  use  may  prove  contagious  !  Go 
and  buy  me  another  copy,  for  the  hour  is  at  hand  when  cer- 
tain persons  are  coming  here  who  must  not  be  seen." 

Godefroid  bowed  and  went  up  to  his  rooms,  where  he 
tossed  the  book  on  to  a  table,  exclaiming — 

"  Poor,  dear  woman  !     There " 

The  book,  like  all  that  are  constantly  used,  fell  open  at  a 
particular  place.  Godefroid  sat  down  to  arrange  his  ideas  a 
little,  for  he  had  gone  through  more  agitation  that  morning 
than  he  had  in  the  course  of  the  most  stormy  two  months  of 
his  life ;  his  curiosity  especially  had  never  been  so  strongly 
excited.  His  eyes  wandered  mechanically,  as  happens  with 
men  when  their  minds  are  absorbed  in  meditation,  and  fell  on 
the  two  pages  that  lay  facing  him.  He  read  as  follows : 

"CHAPTER   XII. 
"Op  THE  ROYAL  WAY  OF  THE  HOLY  CROSS." 

He  picked  up  the  volume,  and  this  paragraph  of  that  grand 
book  captivated  his  eyes  as  though  by  words  of  fire : 

"  He  has  gone  before  you  carrying  His  cross,  and  died  for 
you,  that  you  too  might  have  strength  to  carry  your  cross,  and 
be  willing  to  die  upon  the  Cross 

"Go  where  you  will,  try  what  you  will,  you  cannot  find 
a  grander  way,  or  a  safer  way,  than  the  way  of  the  holy  cross. 
Arrange  and  order  all  your  life  as  you  like  or  think  fit,  still 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  35 

you  will  find  that  you  will  always  have  something  to  suffer,  by 
your  own  choice  or  by  necessity  ;  and  so  you  will  always  find  a 
cross.  For  either  you  will  have  bodily  pain  to  bear  or  some 
trouble  of  the  spirit. 

"  Sometimes  God  will  leave  you  to  yourself,  sometimes  you 
will  be  vexed  by  your  neighbor,  and,  what  is  harder  than  all, 
you  will  often  be  weary  of  yourself,  and  there  is  no  remedy 
or  solace  by  which  you  can  be  delivered  or  relieved.  You 
will  have  to  bear  your  trouble  as  long  as  God  decrees.  For 
He  wishes  you  to  learn  to  surfer  trial  without  consolation,  to 
yield  humbly  to  His  will,  and  to  become  humbler  by  means 
of  tribulation." 

"What  a  book  !  "  said  Godefroid  to  himself,  as  he  turned 
over  the  pages. 

And  he  came  upon  these  words  : 

"  When  you  have  come  to  feel  all  trouble  sweet  and  pleasant 
for  the  love  of  Christ,  then  indeed  you  may  say  that  all  is  well 
with  you ;  you  have  made  for  yourself  a  heaven  on  earth." 

Irritated  by  this  simplicity,  characteristic  of  strength,  and 
enraged  at  being  vanquished  by  this  book,  he  shut  it ;  but  on 
the  morocco  cover  he  saw  this  motto,  stamped  in  letters  of 
gold— 

"  Seek  only  that  which  is  eternal,  and  that  only." 

"And  have  they  found  it  here?  "  he  wondered. 

He  went  out  to  purchase  a  handsome  copy  of  the  "Imita- 
tion of  Christ,"  remembering  that  Madame  de  la  Chanterie 
would  want  to  read  a  chapter  that  evening.  He  went  down- 
stairs and  into  the  street.  For  a  minute  or  two  he  remained 
standing  near  the  gate,  undecided  as  to  which  way  he  would 
go,  and  wondering  in  what  street  and  at  what  bookseller's  he 
might  find  the  book  he  needed  ;  and  he  then  heard  the  heavy 
sound  of  the  outer  gate  shutting. 

Two  men  had  just  come  out  of  the  Hotel  de  la  Chanterie 


36  THE   SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

— for  the  reader,  if  he  has  understood  the  character  of  the  old 
house,  will  have  recognized  it  as  an  ancient  family  mansion. 
Manon,  when  she  had  called  Godefroid  to  breakfast,  had 
asked  him  how  he  had  slept  the  first  night  at  the  Hotel  de  la 
Chanterie,  laughing  as  she  spoke. 

Godefroid  followed  the  two  men,  with  no  idea  of  spying 
on  them ;  and  they,  taking  him  for  an  indifferent  passer-by, 
talked  loud  enough  for  him  to  hear  them  in  those  deserted 
streets.  The  men  turned  down  the  Rue  Massillon,  along  by 
the  side  of  Notre- Dame,  and  across  the  Cathedral  Square. 

"Well,  old  man,  you  see  how  easy  it  is  to  get  the  coppers 
out  of  'em  !  You  must  talk  their  lingo,  that  is  all." 

"  But  we  owe  the  money." 

"Who  to?" 

"To  the  lady " 

"I  should  like  to  see  myself  sued  for  debt  by  that  old 
image!  I  would " 

"  You  would  what  ?     You  would  pay  her,  I  can  tell  you." 

"You're  right  there,  for  if  I  paid  I  could  get  more  out  of 
her  afterward  than  I  got  to-day." 

"  But  wouldn't  it  be  better  to  take  their  advice  and  set  up 
on  the  square?" 

"Get  out!" 

"  Since  she  said  she  could  find  some  one  to  stand  security  ?  " 

"But  we  should  have  to  give  up  life " 

"  I  am  sick  of  '  life  ' — it  is  not  life  to  be  always  working  in 
the  vineyards " 

"  No;  but  didn't  the  abbe  throw  over  old  Marin  the  other 
day.  He  wouldn't  give  him  a  thing." 

"Ay,  but  old  Marin  wanted  to  play  such  a  game  as  no  one 
can  win  at  that  has  not  thousands  at  his  back." 

At  this  moment  the  two  men,  who  were  dressed  like  work- 
ing foremen,  suddenly  doubled,  and  retraced  their  steps  to 
cross  the  bridge  by  the  Hotel-Dieu  to  the  Place  Maubert ; 
Godefroid  stood  aside ;  but  seeing  that  he  was  following  them 


THE   SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  37 

closely,  the  men  exchanged  looks  of  suspicion,  and  they  were 
evidently  vexed  at  having  spoken  out  so  plainly. 

Godefroid  was  indeed  all  the  more  interested  in  the  conver- 
sation because  it  reminded  him  of  the  scene  between  the 
Abbe  de  Veze  and  the  workman  on  the  evening  of  his  first 
call. 

"What  goes  on  at  Madame  de  la  Chanterie's?"  he  asked 
himself  once  more. 

As  he  thought  over  this  question,  he  made  his  way  to  a 
bookshop  in  the  Rue  Saint-Jacques,  and  returned  home  with 
a  very  handsome  copy  of  the  best  edition  of  the  Imitation 
that  has  been  published  in  France. 

As  he  walked  slowly  homeward  to  be  punctual  to  the  din- 
ner-hour, he  went  over  in  his  mind  all  his  experience  of  the 
morning,  and  found  his  soul  singularly  refreshed  by  it.  He 
was  possessed  indeed  by  intense  curiosity,  but  that  curiosity 
paled  before  an  indefinable  wish ;  he  was  attracted  by  Mad- 
ame de  la  Chanterie,  he  felt  a  vehement  longing  to  attach 
himself  to  her,  to  devote  himself  for  her,  to  please  her  and 
deserve  her  praise ;  in  short,  he  was  aware  of  a  Platonic 
passion ;  he  felt  that  there  was  unfathomed  greatness  in  that 
soul,  and  that  he  must  learn  to  know  it  thoroughly.  He  was 
eager  to  discover  the  secrets  of  the  life  of  these  pure-minded 
Catholics.  And  then,  in  this  little  congregation  of  the  faith- 
ful, practical  religion  was  so  intimately  allied  with  all  that  is 
most  majestic  in  the  Frenchwoman,  that  he  resolved  to  do  his 
utmost  to  be  admitted  to  the  fold.  Such  a  vein  of  feeling 
would  have  been  sudden  indeed  in  a  man  of  busy  life ;  but 
Godefroid,  as  we  have  seen,  was  in  the  position  of  a  ship- 
wrecked wretch  who  clings  to  the  most  fragile  bough,  hoping 
that  it  may  bear  him,  and  his  soul  was  ploughed  land,  ready 
to  receive  any  seed. 

He  found  the  four  gentlemen  in  the  drawing-room,  and  he 
presented  the  book  to  Madame  de  la  Chanterie,  saying — 

"  I  would  not  leave  you  without  a  copy  for  this  evening." 


38  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

"God  grant,"  said  she,  looking  at  the  splendid  volume, 
"  that  this  may  be  your  last  fit  of  elegance  !  " 

And  seeing  that  the  four  men  had  reduced  the  smallest 
details  of  their  raiment  to  what  was  strictly  decent  and  useful, 
noticing,  too,  that  this  principle  was  rigorously  carried  out  in 
every  detail  of  the  house,  Godefroid  understood  the  purpose 
of  this  reproof  so  delicately  expressed. 

"  Madame,"  said  he,  "  the  men  you  benefited  this  morning 
are  monsters.  Without  intending  it,  I  overheard  what  they 
were  saying  as  they  went  away,  and  it  was  full  of  the  blackest 
ingratitude." 

"The  two  iron-workers  from  the  Rue  Mouffetard,"  said 
Madame  de  la  Chanterie  to  Monsieur  Nicolas,  "  that  is  your 
concern " 

"  The  fish  gets  off  the  hook  more  than  once  before  it  is 
caught,"  said  Monsieur  Alain,  laughing. 

Madame  de  la  Chanterie's  entire  indifference  on  hearing  of 
the  immediate  ingratitude  of  the  men  to  whom  she  had  cer- 
tainly given  money  amazed  Godefroid,  who  became  thought- 
ful. 

Monsieur  Alain  and  the  old  lawyer  made  the  dinner  a 
cheerful  meal ;  but  the  soldier  was  constantly  grave,  sad,  and 
cold  ;  his  countenance  bore  the  ineradicable  stamp  of  a  bit- 
ter sorrow,  a  perennial  grief.  Madame  de  la  Chanterie  was 
equally  attentive  to  all.  Godefroid  felt  that  he  was  watched 
by  these  men,  whose  prudence  was  not  less  than  their  piety, 
and  vanity  led  him  to  imitate  their  reserve,  so  he  measured 
his  words  carefully. 

This  first  day,  indeed,  was  far  more  lively  than  those  which 
came  after.  Godefroid,  finding  himself  shut  out  from  all 
serious  matters,  was  obliged,  during  the  early  morning  and 
the  evening  when  he  was  alone  in  his  rooms,  to  read  "  The 
Imitation  of  Christ,"  and  he  finally  studied  it  as  we  must 
study  a  book  when  we  are  imprisoned  with  that  one  alone. 
We  then  feel  to  the  book  as  we  should  toward  a  woman  with 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  39 

whom  we  dwelt  in  solitude ;  we  must  either  love  or  hate  the 
woman ;  and  in  the  same  way  we  must  enter  into  the  spirit 
of  the  author  or  not  read  ten  lines  of  his  work. 

Now  it  is  impossible  not  to  be  held  captive  by  "  The  Imita- 
tion," which  is  to  dogma  what  action  is  to  thought.  The 
Catholic  spirit  thrills  through  it,  moves  and  works  in  it, 
truggles  in  it  hand  to  hand  with  the  life  of  man.  That  book 

a  trusty  friend.     It  speaks  to  every  passion,  to  every  diffi- 

ilty,  even  to  the  most  worldly;  it  answers  every  objection, 
it  is  more  eloquent  than  any  preacher,  for  it  speaks  with  your 
own  voice — a  voice  that  rises  from  your  own  heart  and  that 
you  hear  with  your  soul.  In  short,  it  is  the  Gospel  inter- 
preted and  adapted  to  all  times  and  seasons,  controlling  every 
situation.  It  is  strange  indeed  that  the  church  should  not 
have  canonized  the  Archbishop  Gerson,*  for  the  Holy  Spirit 
certainly  guided  his  pen. 

To  Godefroid  the  Hotel  de  la  Chanterie  contained  a  woman 
as  well  as  a  book  ;  every  day  he  was  more  and  more  be- 
witched by  her.  In  her  he  found  flowers  buried  under  the 
snow  of  many  winters  ;  he  had  glimpses  of  such  a  sacred 
friendship  as  religion  sanctions,  as  the  angels  smile  on — as 
bound  those  five,  in  fact — and  against  which  no  evil  could 
prevail.  There  is  a  sentiment  superior  to  all  others,  an  affec- 
tion of  soul  for  soul  which  resembles  those  rare  blossoms  that 
grow  on  the  loftiest  peaks  of  the  earth.  One  or  two  examples 
are  shown  us  in  a  century;  lovers  are  sometimes  united  by  it; 
and  it  accounts  for  certain  faithful  attachments  which  would 
be  inexplicable  by  the  ordinary  laws  of  the  world.  In  such 
an  attachment  there  are  no  disappointments,  no  differences, 
no  vanities,  no  rivalries,  no  contrasts  even,  so  intimately 
fused  are  two  spiritual  natures. 

It  was  this  immense  and  infinite  feeling,  the  outcome  of 
Catholic  charity,  that  Godefroid  was  beginning  to  dream  of. 
At  times  he  could  not  believe  in  the  spectacle  before  his  eyes, 

*  Claimed  by  the  French  to  be  the  author  of  the  "  Imitation  of  Christ." 


40  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

and  he  sought  to  find  reasons  for  the  sublime  friendship  between 
these  five  persons,  wondering  to  find  true  Catholics,  Christians 
of  the  most  primitive  type,  in  Paris,  and  in  1836. 

A  week  after  entering  the  house,  Godefroid  had  seen  such  a 
number  of  people  come  and  go,  he  had  overheard  fragments 
of  conversation  in  which  such  serious  matters  were  discussed, 
that  he  understood  that  the  existence  of  this  council  of  five 
was  full  of  prodigious  activity.  He  noticed  that  not  one  of 
them  slept  more  than  six  hours  at  most.  Each  of  them  had, 
as  it  were,  lived  through  a  first  day  before  they  met  at  the 
second  breakfast.  Strangers  brought  in  or  carried  away  sums 
of  money,  sometimes  rather  considerable.  Mongenod's 
cashier  came  very  often,  always  early  in  the  morning,  so  that 
his  work  in  the  bank  should  not  be  interfered  with  by  this 
business,  which  was  independent  of  the  regular  affairs  of  the 
firm. 

One  evening  Monsieur  Mongenod  himself  called,  and 
Godefroid  observed  a  touch  of  filial  familiarity  in  his  tone  to 
Monsieur  Alain,  mingled  with  the  deep  respect  he  showed  to 
him,  as  to  Madame  de  le  Chanterie's  three  other  boarders. 

That  evening  the  banker  only  asked  Godefroid  the  most 
ordinary  questions :  Was  he  comfortable  ?  Did  he  mean  to 
stay  ?  and  so  forth,  advising  him  to  persevere  in  his  deter- 
mination. 

"  There  is  but  one  thing  wanting  to  make  me  happy,"  said 
Godefroid. 

"And  what  is  that?"  said  the  banker. 

"An  occupation." 

"  An  occupation  !  "  cried  the  Abbe  de  Veze.  "  Then  you 
have  changed  your  mind ;  you  came  to  our  retreat  in  search 
of  rest." 

"  But  without  prayer,  which  gives  life  to  the  cloister ;  with- 
out meditation,  which  peoples  the  desert,  rest  becomes  a 
disease,"  said  Monsieur  Joseph  sententiously. 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  41 

"Learn  bookkeeping,"  said  Mongenod,  smiling.  "In  the 
course  of  a  few  months  you  may  be  of  great  use  to  my  friends 
here " 

"  Oh,  with  the  greatest  pleasure,"  exclaimed  Godefroid. 

The  next  day  was  Sunday.  Madame  de  la  Chanterie 
desired  her  boarder  to  give  her  his  arm  and  to  escort  her  to 
high  mass. 

"This,"  she  said,  "  is  the  only  thing  I  desire  to  force  upon 
you.  Many  a  time  during  the  week  I  have  been  moved  to 
speak  to  you  of  your  salvation ;  but  I  do  not  think  the  time 
has  come.  You  would  have  plenty  to  occupy  you  if  you 
shared  our  beliefs,  for  you  would  also  share  our  labors." 

At  mass,  Godefroid  observed  the  fervency  of  Messieurs 
Nicolas,  Joseph,  and  Alain.  Having,  during  these  few  days, 
convinced  himself  of  the  superior  intellect  of  these  three 
men,  their  perspicacity,  extensive  learning,  and  lofty  spirit, 
he  concluded  that  if  they  could  thus  abase  themselves,  the 
Catholic  religion  must  contain  mysteries  which  had  hitherto 
escaped  his  ken. 

"And,  after  all,"  said  he  to  himself,  "it  is  the  religion  of 
Bossuet,  of  Pascal,  of  Racine,  of  Saint-Louis,  of  Louis  XVI., 
of  Raphael,  Michael-Angelo,  and  Ximenes,  of  Bayard  and 
du  Guesclin — and  how  should  such  a  poor  creature  as  I  com- 
pare myself  with  these  great  brains,  statesmen,  poets,  war- 
riors?" 

Were  it  not  that  a  great  lesson  is  to  be  derived  from  these 
trivial  details,  it  would  be  foolish  in  such  times  as  these  to 
dwell  on  them ;  but  they  are  indispensable  to  the  interest  of 
this  narrative,  which  the  readers  of  our  day  will,  indeed,  find 
it  hard  to  believe,  beginning  as  it  does  by  an  almost  ridiculous 
incident — the  influence  exerted  by  a  woman  of  sixty  over  a 
young  man  who  had  tried  everything  and  found  it  wanting. 

"You  did  not  pray,"  said  Madame  de  la  Chanterie  to 
Godefroid  as  they  came  out  of  Notre-Dame.  "Not  for  any 
one,  not  even  for  the  peace  of  your  mother's  soul? " 


42  THE   SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

Godefroid  reddened,  but  said  nothing. 

"  Do  me  the  pleasure,"  Madame  de  la  Chanterie  went  on, 
"  to  go  to  your  room,  and  not  to  come  down  to  the  drawing- 
room  for  an  hour.  And  for  the  love  of  me,  meditate  on  a 
chapter  of  the  Imitation — the  first  of  the  Third  Book,  entitled 
'Or  CHRIST  SPEAKING  WITHIN  THE  FAITHFUL  SOUL.'' 

Godefroid  bowed  coolly,  and  went  upstairs. 

"The  devil  take  'em  all !  "  he  exclaimed,  now  really  in  a 
rage.  "  What  the  deuce  do  they  want  of  me  here  ?  What 
game  are  they  playing?  Pshaw!  Every  woman,  even  the 
veriest  bigot,  is  full  of  tricks,  and  if  madame  "  (the  name  the 
boarders  gave  their  hostess)  "  does  not  want  me  downstairs,  it 
is  because  they  are  plotting  something  against  me." 

With  this  notion  in  his  head,  he  tried  to  look  out  of  his  own 
window  into  that  of  the  drawing-room,  but  the  plan  of  the 
building  did  not  allow  of  it.  Then  he  went  down  one  flight, 
but  hastily  ran  up  again  ;  for  it  struck  him  that  in  a  house 
where  the  principal  inhabitants  held  such  strict  principles,  an 
act  of  espionage  would  lead  to  his  immediate  dismissal.  Now, 
to  lose  the  esteem  of  those  five  persons  seemed  to  him  as 
serious  a  matter  as  public  dishonor. 

He  waited  about  three-quarters  of  an  hour,  resolved  to  take 
Madame  de  la  Chanterie  by  surprise,  and  to  go  down  a  little 
before  the  time  she  had  named.  He  intended  to  excuse  him- 
self by  a  fib,  saying  that  his  watch  was  in  fault,  and  twenty 
minutes  too  fast.  He  went  down  cautiously,  without  a  sound, 
and  on  reaching  the  drawing-room  door  opened  it  suddenly. 

He  saw  a  man,  still  young  but  already  famous,  a  poet  whom 
he  had  often  met  in  society,  Victor  de  Vernisset,  kneeling  on 
one  knee  before  Madame  de  la  Chanterie,  and  kissing  the  hem 
of  her  gown.  The  sky  falling  in  splinters  as  if  it  were  made 
of  crystal,  as  the  ancients  believed,  would  have  amazed  Gode- 
froid less  than  this  sight.  The  most  shocking  ideas  besieged 
his  brain,  and  the  reaction  was  even  more  terrible  when,  just 
as  he  was  about  to  utter  the  first  sarcasm  that  rose  to  his  lips, 


THE   SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY.  43 

he  saw  Monsieur  Alain  standing  in  a  corner,  counting  thou- 
sand-franc notes. 

In  an  instant  Vernisset  had  started  to  his  feet.  Good  Mon- 
sieur Alain  stared  in  astonishment.  Madame  de  la  Chanterie 
flashed  a  look  that  petrified  Godefroid,  for  the  doubtful  ex- 
pression in  the  new  boarder's  face  had  not  escaped  her. 

"Monsieur  is  one  of  us,"  she  said  to  the  young  author,  in- 
troducing Godefroid. 

"You  are  a  happy  man,  my  dear  fellow,"  said  Vernisset. 
"You  are  saved!  But,  madame,"  he  went  on,  turning  to 
Madame  de  la  Chanterie,  "  if  all  Paris  could  have  seen  me,  I 
should  be  delighted.  Nothing  can  ever  pay  my  debt  to  you. 
I  am  your  slave  for  ever  !  I  am  yours,  body  and  soul.  Com- 
mand me  whatever  you  will,  I  will  obey ;  my  gratitude  knows 
no  bounds.  I  owe  you  my  life — it  is  yours." 

"Come,  come,"  said  the  worthy  Alain,  "do  not  be  rash. 
Only  work;  and,  above  all,  never  attack  religion  in  your 
writings.  And  remember  you  are  in  debt." 

He  handed  him  an  envelope  bulging  with  the  bank-notes 
he  had  counted  out.  Victor  de  Vernisset's  eyes  filled  with 
tears.  He  respectfully  kissed  Madame  de  la  Chanterie's  hand, 
and  went  away  after  shaking  hands  with  Monsieur  Alain  and 
with  Godefroid. 

"  You  did  not  obey  madame,"  said  the  good  man  solemnly ; 
and  his  face  had  an  expression  of  sadness,  such  as  Godefroid 
had  not  as  yet  seen  on  it.  "  That  is  a  capital  crime.  If  it 
occurs  again,  we  must  part.  It  would  be  very  hard  on  you, 
after  having  seemed  worthy  of  our  confidence " 

"  My  dear  Alain,"  said  Madame  de  la  Chanterie,  "be  so 
good,  for  my  sake,  as  to  say  nothing  of  this  act  of  folly. 
We  must  not  expect  too  much  of  a  new-comer  who  has  had  no 
great  sorrows,  who  has  no  religion — who  has  nothing,  in  fact, 
but  great  curiosity  concerning  every  vocation,  and  who  as  yet 
does  not  believe  in  us." 

"Forgive  me,  madame,"  replied  Godefroid.     "From  this 


44  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY. 

moment  I  will  be  worthy  of  you ;  I  submit  to  every  test  you 
may  think  necessary  before  initiating  me  into  the  secret  of 
your  labors ;  and  if  monsieur  the  abbe  will  undertake  to  en- 
lighten me,  I  give  myself  up  to  him,  soul  and  reason." 

These  words  made  Madame  de  la  Chanterie  so  happy  that  a 
faint  flush  rose  to  her  cheeks,  she  clasped  Godefroid's  hand 
and  pressed  it,  saying,  with  strange  emotion,  "  That  is  well !" 

In  the  evening,  after  dinner,  Godefroid  saw  a  vicar-general 
of  the  diocese  of  Paris,  who  came  to  call,  two  canons,  two 
retired  mayors  of  Paris,  and  a  lady  who  devoted  herself  to  the 
poor.  There  was  no  gambling ;  the  conversation  was  general, 
and  cheerful  without  being  futile. 

A  visitor  who  greatly  surprised  Godefroid  was  the  Countess 
of  Saint-Cygne,  one  of  the  loftiest  stars  of  the  aristocratic 
spheres,  whose  drawing-room  was  quite  inaccessible  to  the 
citizen  class  and  to  parvenus.  The  mere  presence  of  this 
great  lady  in  Madame  de  la  Chanterie's  room  was  sufficiently 
amazing;  but  the  way  in  which  the  two  women  met  and 
treated  each  other  was  to  Godefroid  quite  inexplicable,  for  it 
bore  witness  to  an  intimacy  and  constant  intercourse  which 
proved  the  high  merit  of  Madame  de  la  Chanterie.  Madame 
de  Saint-Cygne  was  gracious  and  friendly  to  her  friend's  four 
friends,  and  very  respectful  to  Monsieur  Nicolas. 

As  may  be  seen,  social  vanity  still  had  a  hold  on  Godefroid, 
who,  hitherto  undecided,  now  determined  to  yield,  with  or 
without  conviction,  to  everything  Madame  de  la  Chanterie 
and  her  friends  might  require  of  him,  to  succeed  in  being 
affiliated  by  them  to  their  Order,  or  initiated  into  their 
secrets,  promising  himself  that  until  then  he  would  not  defi- 
nitely commit  himself. 

On  the  following  day,  he  went  to  the  bookkeeper  recom- 
mended by  Madame  de  la  Chanterie,  agreed  with  him  as  to 
the  hours  when  they  were  to  work  together,  and  so  disposed 
of  all  his  time;  for  the  Abbe  de  Veze  was  to  catechise  him  in 
the  morning,  he  spent  two  hours  of  every  day  learning  book- 


THE   SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  45 

keeping,  and  between  breakfast  and  dinner  he  worked  at  the 
exercises  and  imaginary  commercial  correspondence  set  him 
by  his  master. 

Some  few  days  thus  passed,  during  which  Godefroid  learned 
the  charm  of  a  life  of  which  every  hour  has  its  employment. 
The  recurrence  of  the  same  duties  at  fixed  hours,  and  perfect 
regularity,  sufficiently  account  for  many  happy  lives,  and 
prove  how  deeply  the  founders  of  religious  orders  had  medi- 
tated on  human  nature.  Godefroid,  who  had  made  up  his 
mind  to  learn  of  the  Abbe  de  Veze,  had  already  begun  to  feel 
qualms  as  to  his  future  life,  and  to  discover  that  he  was  igno- 
rant of  the  importance  of  religious  matters. 

Finally,  day  by  day,  Madame  de  la  Chanterie,  with  whom 
he  always  sat  for  about  an  hour  after  the  second  breakfast, 
revealed  some  fresh  treasures  of  her  nature ;  he  had  never  con- 
ceived of  goodness  so  complete,  so  all-embracing.  A  woman 
as  old  as  Madame  de  la  Chanterie  seemed  to  be  has  none  of 
the  triviality  of  a  young  woman ;  she  is  a  friend  who  may 
offer  you  every  feminine  dainty,  who  displays  all  the  grace 
and  refinement  with  which  Nature  inspires  woman  to  please 
man,  but  who  no  longer  asks  for  a  return  ;  she  may  be  exe- 
crable or  exquisite,  for  all  her  demands  on  life  are  buried 
beneath  the  skin — or  are  dead;  and  Madame  de  la  Chanterie 
was  exquisite.  She  seemed  never  to  have  been  young ;  her 
looks  never  spoke  of  the  past.  Far  from  allaying  his  curiosity, 
Godefroid's  increased  intimacy  with  this  beautiful  character, 
and  the  discoveries  he  made  day  by  day,  increased  his  desire 
to  know  something  of  the  previous  history  of  the  woman  he 
now  saw  as  a  saint.  Had  she  ever  loved  ?  Had  she  been 
married?  Had  she  been  a  mother?  There  was  nothing  in 
her  suggestive  of  the  old  maid ;  she  had  all  the  elegance  of  a 
woman  of  birth  ;  and  her  strong  health,  and  the  extraordinary 
charm  of  her  conversation,  seemed  to  reveal  a  heavenly  life,  a 
sort  of  ignorance  of  the  world.  Excepting  the  worthy  and 
cheerful  Alain,  all  these  persons  had  known  suffering;  but  Mon- 


46  THE   SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

sieur  Nicolas  himself  seemed  to  give  the  palm  of  martyrdom 
to  Madame  de  la  Chanterie ;  nevertheless,  the  memory  of  her 
sorrows  was  so  entirely  suppressed  by  Catholic  resignation, 
and  her  secret  occupations,  that  she  seemed  to  have  been 
always  happy. 

"You  are  the  life  of  your  friends,"  said  Godefroid  to  her 
one  day.  "You  are  the  bond  that  unites  them;  you  are  the 
housekeeper,  so  to  speak,  of  a  great  work ;  and  as  we  are  all 
mortal,  I  cannot  but  wonder  what  would  become  of  your  as- 
sociation without  you." 

"Yes,  that  is  what  they  fear;  but  Providence — to  whom 
we  owe  our  bookkeeper,"  said  she  with  a  smile — "will 
doubtless  provide.  However,  I  shall  think  it  over " 

"And  will  your  bookkeeper  soon  find  himself  at  work  on 
your  business?"  asked  Godefroid,  laughing. 

"That  must  depend  upon  himself,"  she  said  with  a  sweet 
smile. 

"  If  he  is  sincerely  religious,  truly  pious,  has  not  the  smallest 
conceit,  does  not  trouble  his  head  about  the  wealth  of  the 
establishment,  and  endeavors  to  rise  superior  to  petty  social 
considerations  by  soaring  on  the  wings  God  has  bestowed  on 
us " 

"Which  are  they?" 

"  Simplicity  and  purity,"  replied  Madame  de  la  Chanterie. 
"  Your  ignorance  proves  that  you  neglect  reading  your 
book,"  she  added,  laughing  at  the  innocent  trap  she  had 
laid  to  discover  whether  Godefroid  read  the  "  Imitation  of 
Christ."  "  Soak  your  mind  in  Saint  Paul's  great  chapter  on 
Charity.  It  is  not  you  who  will  be  devoted  to  us,  but  we  to 
you,"  she  said  with  a  lofty  look,  "and  it  will  be  your  part  to 
keep  account  of  the  greatest  riches  ever  possessed  by  any 
sovereign ;  you  will  have  the  same  enjoyment  of  them  as  we 
have ;  and  let  me  tell  you,  if  you  remember  the  Thousand 
and  One  Nights,  that  the  treasures  of  Aladdin  are  as  nothing 
in  comparison  with  ours.  Indeed,  for  a  year  past,  we  have 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  47 

not  known  what  to  do ;  it  was  too  much  for  us.  We  needed 
a  bookkeeper." 

As  she  spoke  she  studied  Godefroid's  face ;  he  knew  not 
what  to  think  of  this  strange  confidence  ;  but  the  scene  be- 
tween Madame  de  la  Chanterie  and  the  elder  Madame  Mon- 
genod  had  often  recurred  to  him,  and  he  hesitated  between 
doubt  and  belief. 

"  Yes,  you  would  be  very  fortunate  !"  said  she. 

Godefroid  was  so  consumed  by  curiosity,  that  from  that 
instant  he  resolved  to  undermine  the  reserve  of  the  four 
friends,  and  to  ask  them  about  themselves.  Now,  of  all 
Madame  de  la  Chanterie's  boarders,  the  one  who  most 
attracted  Godefroid,  and  who  was  the  most  fitted  in  all  ways 
to  invite  the  sympathy  of  people  of  every  class,  was  the 
kindly,  cheerful,  and  unaffected  Monsieur  Alain.  By  what 
means  had  Providence  guided  this  simple-minded  being  to 
this  secular  convent,  where  the  votaries  lived  under  rules  as 
strictly  observed,  in  perfect  freedom  and  in  the  midst  of  Paris, 
as  though  they  were  under  the  sternest  of  priors?  What 
drama,  what  catastrophe,  had  made  him  turn  aside  from  his 
road  through  the  world  to  take  a  path  so  hard  to  tread  across 
the  troubles  of  a  great  city? 

One  evening  Godefroid  determined  to  call  on  his  neighbor, 
with  the  purpose  of  satisfying  a  curiosity  which  was  more 
excited  by  the  incredibility  of  any  catastrophe  in  such  a 
man's  life  than  it  could  have  been  by  the  expectation  of  listen- 
ing to  some  terrible  episode  in  the  life  of  a  pirate. 

On  hearing  the  reply:  "Come  in,"  in  answer  to  two 
modest  raps  on  the  door,  Godefroid  turned  the  key,  which 
was  always  in  the  lock,  and  found  Monsieur  Alain  seated  in 
his  chimney-corner,  reading  a  chapter  of  the  Imitation  before 
going  to  bed  by  the  light  of  two  wax-candles  with  green 
shades,  such  as  whist-players  use.  The  worthy  man  had  on 
}iis  trousers  and  a  dressing-gown  of  thick  gray  flannel ;  his 


48  THE   SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

feet  were  raised  to  the  level  of  the  fire  on  a  hassock  worked 
in  cross-stitch — as  his  slippers  were  also — by  Madame  de  la 
Chanterie.  His  striking  old  head,  with  its  circlet  of  white 
hair,  almost  resembling  that  of  an  old  monk,  stood  out,  a 
lighter  spot  against  the  brown  background  of  an  immense 
armchair. 

Monsieur  Alain  quietly  laid  his  book,  with  its  worn  corners, 
on  the  little  table  with  twisted  legs,  while  with  the  other  hand 
he  waved  the  young  man  to  the  second  armchair,  removing 
his  glasses,  which  nipped  the  end  of  his  nose. 

"Are  you  unwell,  that  you  have  come  down  so  late?"  he 
asked. 

"  Dear  Monsieur  Alain,"  Godefroid  frankly  replied,  "  I  am 
a  prey  to  curiosity  which  a  single  word  from  you  will  prove 
to  be  very  innocent  or  very  indiscreet,  and  that  is  enough  to 
show  you  in  what  spirit  I  shall  venture  to  ask  a  question." 

"Oh,  ho!  and  what  is  it?"  said  he,  with  an  almost  mis- 
chievous sparkle  in  his  eye. 

"What  was  the  circumstance  that  induced  you  to  lead  the 
life  you  lead  here?  For  to  embrace  such  a  doctrine  of  utter 
renunciation  a  man  must  be  disgusted  with  the  world,  must 
have  been  deeply  wounded,  or  have  wounded  others." 

"  Why,  why,  my  boy?"  replied  the  old  man,  and  his  full 
lips  parted  in  one  of  those  smiles  which  made  his  ruddy  mouth 
one  of  the  most  affectionate  that  the  genius  of  a  painter  could 
conceive  of.  "May  he  not  feel  touched  to  the  deepest  pity 
by  the  sight  of  the  woes  to  be  seen  within  the  walls  of  Paris? 
Did  Saint  Vincent  de  Paul  need  the  goad  of  remorse  or  of 
wounded  vanity  to  devote  himself  to  foundling  babes?" 

"Such  an  answer  shuts  my  mouth  all  the  more  effectually, 
because  if  ever  a  soul  was  a  match  for  that  of  the  Christian 
hero,  it  is  yours,"  replied  Godefroid. 

In  spite  of  the  thickening  given  by  age  to  his  yellow  and 
wrinkled  face,  the  old  man  colored  crimson,  for  he  might 
seem  to  have  invited  the  eulogium,  though  his  well-known 


THE   SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  49 

modesty  forbade  the  idea  that  he  had  thought  of  it.  Gode- 
froid  knew  full  well  that  Madame  de  la  Chanterie's  guests  had 
no  taste  for  this  kind  of  incense.  And  yet  good  Monsieur 
Alain's  guilelessness  was  more  distressed  by  this  scruple  than 
a  young  maid  would  have  been  by  some  evil  suggestion. 

"Though  I  am  far  from  resembling  him  in  spirit,"  replied 
Monsieur  Alain,  "  I  certainly  am  like  him  in  appearance " 

Godefroid  was  about  to  speak,  but  was  checked  by  a  gesture 
from  the  old  man,  whose  nose  had  in  fact  the  bulbous  appear- 
ance of  the  saint's,  and  whose  face,  much  like  that  of  some 
old  vine-dresser,  was  the  very  duplicate  of  the  coarse,  common 
countenance  of  the  founder  of  the  Foundling  Hospital.  "As 
to  that,  you  are  right,"  he  went  on  ;  "  my  vocation  to  this 
work  was  the  result  of  an  impulse  of  repentance  in  conse- 
quence of  an  adventure " 

"An  adventure!  You!"  said  Godefroid  softly,  who  at 
this  word  forgot  what  he  had  been  about  to  say. 

"  Oh,  the  story  I  have  to  tell  will  seem  to  you  a  mere  trifle, 
a  foolish  business;  but  before  the  tribunal  of  conscience  it 
looked  different.  If,  after  having  heard  me,  you  persist  in 
your  wish  to  join  in  our  labors,  you  will  understand  that  feel- 
ings are  in  inverse  proportion  to  our  strength  of  soul,  and 
that  a  matter  which  would  not  trouble  a  Freethinker  may 
greatly  weigh  on  a  feeble  Christian." 

After  this  prelude,  the  neophyte's  curiosity  had  risen  to  an 
indescribable  pitch.  What  could  be  the  crime  of  this  good 
soul  whom  Madame  de  la  Chanterie  had  nicknamed  her  Pas- 
chal Lamb?  It  was  as  exciting  as  a  book  entitled  "The 
Crimes  of  a  Sheep."  Sheep,  perhaps,  are  ferocious  to  the 
grass  and  flowers.  If  we  listen  to  one  of  the  mildest  republi- 
cans of  our  day,  the  best  creatures  living  are  cruel  to  some- 
thing. But  good  Monsieur  Alain  !  He,  who,  like  Sterne's 
Uncle  Toby,  would  not  crush  a  fly  when  it  had  stung  him 
twenty  times  !  This  beautiful  soul — tortured  by  repentance  ! 

These  reflections  filled  up  the  pause  made  by  the  old  man 
4 


50  THE   SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

after  he  had  said,  "Listen,  then!"  and  during  which  he 
pushed  forward  the  cushion  under  Godefroid's  feet  that  they 
might  share  it. 

"  I  was  a  little  over  thirty,"  said  he;  "  it  was  in  the  year 
'98,  so  far  as  I  recollect,  a  time  when  young  men  of  thirty 
had  the  experience  of  men  of  sixty.  One  morning,  a  little 
before  my  breakfast  hour  at  nine  o'clock,  my  old  housekeeper 
announced  one  of  the  few  friends  left  to  me  by  the  storms  of 
the  Revolution.  So  my  first  words  were  to  ask  him  to  break- 
fast. My  friend,  whose  name  was  Mongenod,  a  young  fellow 
of  eight-and-twenty,  accepted,  but  with  some  hesitancy.  I 
had  not  seen  him  since  1793 " 

"  Mongenod  !  "  cried  Godefroid,  "  the ?" 

"  If  you  want  to  know  the  end  of  the  story  before  the  be- 
ginning," the  old  man  put  in  with  a  smile,  "  how  am  I  to 
tell  it?" 

Godefroid  settled  himself  with  an  air  that  promised  perfect 
silence. 

"When  Mongenod  had  seated  himself,"  the  good  man 
went  on,  "  I  observed  that  his  shoes  were  dreadfully  worn. 
His  spotted  stockings  had  been  so  often  washed  that  it  was 
hard  to  recognize  that  they  were  of  silk.  His  knee-breeches 
were  of  nankin-colored  kerseymere,  so  faded  as  to  tell  of 
long  wear,  emphasized  by  stains  in  many  places,  and  their 
buckles,  instead  of  steel,  seemed  to  me  to  be  of  common  iron  ; 
his  shoe-buckles  were  a  match.  His  flowered  white  vest,  yel- 
low with  long  use,  his  shirt  with  its  frayed-pleated  frill,  re- 
vealed extreme  though  decent  poverty.  Finally,  his  coat — a 
houppelande,  as  we  called  such  a  coat,  with  a  single  collar  like 
a  very  short  cape — was  enough  to  assure  me  that  my  friend 
had  fallen  on  bad  times.  This  coat  of  nut-brown  cloth,  ex- 
tremely threadbare,  and  brushed  with  excessive  care,  had  a 
rim  of  grease  or  powder  round  the  collar,  and  buttons  off 
which  the  plating  had  worn  to  the  copper.  In  fact,  the  whole 
outfit  was  so  wretched  that  I  could  not  bear  to  look  at  it. 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  51 

His  crush  hat — a  semicircular  structure  of  beaver,  which  it  was 
then  customary  to  carry  under  one  arm  instead  of  wearing  it 
on  the  head — must  have  survived  many  changes  of  govern- 
ment. 

"  However,  my  friend  had  no  doubt  just  spent  a  few  sous  to 
have  his  head  dressed  by  a  barber,  for  he  was  freshly  shaven, 
and  his  hair,  fastened  into  a  knob  with  a  comb,  was  luxuriously 
powdered,  and  smelt  of  pomatum.  I  could  see  two  chains 
hanging  parallel  out  of  his  fobs,  chains  of  tarnished  steel,  but 
no  sign  of  the  watches  within.  It  was  winter,  but  Mongenod 
had  no  cloak,  for  some  large  drops  of  melting  snow  fallen 
from  the  eaves  under  which  he  had  walked  for  shelter  lay  on 
the  collar  of  his  coat.  When  he  drew  off  his  rabbit-fur  gloves 
and  I  saw  his  right  hand,  I  could  perceive  the  traces  of  some 
kind  of  hard  labor. 

"  Now,  his  father,  an  advocate  in  the  higher  court,  had  left 
him  some  little  fortune — five  or  six  thousand  francs  a  year. 
I  at  once  understood  that  Mongenod  had  come  to  borrow 
of  me.  I  had  in  a  certain  hiding-place  two  hundred  louis  in 
gold  (about  one  thousand  dollars),  an  enormous  sum  at  that 
time,  when  it  represented  I  know  not  how  many  hundred 
thousand  francs  in  paper  assignats. 

"  Mongenod  and  I  had  been  schoolfellows  at  the  College  des 
Grassins,  and  we  had  been  thrown  together  again  in  the  same 
lawyer's  office — an  honest  man,  the  worthy  Bordin.  When 
two  men  have  spent  their  boyhood  together  and  shared  the 
follies  of  their  youth,  there  is  an  almost  sacred  bond  of  sym- 
pathy between  them ;  the  man's  voice  and  look  stir  certain 
chords  in  your  heart,  which  never  vibrate  but  to  the  particular 
memories  that  he  can  rouse.  Even  if  you  have  some  cause  to 
complain  of  such  a  comrade,  that  does  not  wipe  out  every 
claim  of  friendship,  and  between  us  there  had  not  been  the 
slightest  quarrel. 

"In  1787,  when  his  father  died,  Mongenod  had  been  a 
richer  man  than  myself;  and  though  I  had  never  borrowed 


52  THE   SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

from  him,  I  had  owed  to  him  certain  pleasures  which  my 
father's  strictness  would  have  prohibited.  But  for  my  friend's 
generosity,  I  should  not  have  seen  the  first  performance  of  the 
'  Marriage  of  Figaro.' 

"  Mongenod  was  at  that  time  what  was  called  a  finished 
gentleman,  a  man  about  town  and  attentive  to  'the  ladies.' 
I  constantly  reproved  him  for  his  too  great  facility  in  making 
friends  and  obliging  them  ;  his  purse  was  constantly  open,  he 
lived  liberally,  he  would  have  stood  surety  for  you  after  meet- 
ing you  twice.  Dear  me,  dear  me  !  You  have  started  me  on 
reminiscences  of  my  youth  !  "  cried  Monsieur  Alain,  with  a 
bright  smile  at  Godefroid  as  he  paused. 

"You  are  not  vexed  with  me?"  said  Godefroid. 

"No,  no.  And  you  may  judge  by  the  minute  details  I 
am  giving  you  how  large  a  place  the  event  filled  in  my  life. 
Mongenod,  with  a  good  heart  and  plenty  of  courage,  some- 
thing of  a  Voltairean,  was  inclined  to  play  the  fine  gentle- 
man," Monsieur  Alain  went  on.  "  His  education  at  the 
Grassins,  where  noblemen's  sons  were  to  be  met,  and  his 
adventures  of  gallantry,  had  given  him  the  polish  of  men  01 
rank,  in  those  days  termed  Aristocrats.  So  you  may  imagine 
how  great  was  my  consternation  at  observing  in  Mongenod 
such  signs  of  poverty  as  degraded  him  in  my  eyes  from  the 
elegant  young  Mongenod  I  had  known  in  1787,  when  my 
eyes  wandered  from  his  face  to  examine  his  clothes. 

"  However,  at  that  time  of  general  public  penury,  some 
wily  persons  assumed  an  appearance  of  wretchedness  ;  and  as 
others  no  doubt  had  ample  reasons  for  assuming  a  disguise,  I 
hoped  for  some  explanation,  and  invited  it. 

"  '  What  a  plight  you  are  in,  my  dear  Mongenod  ! '  said  I, 
accepting  a  pinch  of  snuff,  which  he  offered  me  from  a  box  oi 
imitation  gold. 

"  'Sad  enough  !  '  replied  he.  'I  have  but  one  friend  left 
— and  you  are  that  friend.  I  have  done  everything  in  the 
world  to  avoid  coming  to  this  point,  but  I  have  come  to  ask 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  53 

you  to  lend  me  a  hundred  louis.  It  is  a  large  sum,'  said  he, 
noticing  my  surprise,  '  but  if  you  lend  me  no  more  than  fifty, 
I  shall  never  be  able  to  repay  you;  whereas,  if  I  should  fail 
in  what  I  am  undertaking,  I  shall  still  have  fifty  louis  to  try 
some  other  road  to  fortune,  and  I  do  not  yet  know  what  in- 
spiration despair  may  bring  me.' 

"  '  Then,  have  you  nothing?  '  said  I. 

"  '  I  have,'  said  he,  hiding  a  tear,  '  just  five  sous  left  out  of 
my  last  piece  of  silver.  To  call  on  you,  I  had  my  boots 
cleaned  and  my  head  dressed.  I  have  the  clothes  on  my 
back.  But,'  he  went  on,  with  a  desperate  shrug,  '  I  owe  my 
landlady  a  thousand  crowns  in  assignats,  and  the  man  at  the 
cookstore  yesterday  refused  to  trust  me.  So  I  have  nothing — 
nothing.' 

"'And  what  do  you  propose  doing?'  said  I,  insistently 
meddling  with  his  private  affairs. 

"  '  To  enlist  if  you  refuse  to  help  me.' 

"  '  You,  a  soldier  !     You — Mongenod  ? ' 

"  '  I  will  get  killed,  or  I  will  be  General  Mongenod.' 

"'Well,1  said  I,  really  moved,  'eat  your  breakfast  in 
peace  ;  I  have  a  hundred  louis ' 

"And  here,"  said  the  good  man,  looking  slily  at  Godefroid, 
"I  thought  it  necessary  to  tell  a  lender's  little  fib. 

"  '  But  it  is  all  I  have  in  the  world,'  I  said  to  Mongenod. 
'  I  was  waiting  till  the  Funds  had  gone  down  to  the  lowest 
mark  to  invest  my  money,  but  I  will  place  it  in  your  hands, 
and  you  may  regard  me  as  your  partner ;  I  leave  it  to  your 
conscience  to  repay  me  the  whole  in  due  time  and  place.  An 
honest  man's  conscience,'  I  added,  '  is  the  best  possible  secur- 
ity.' 

"  Mongenod  looked  hard  at  me  as  I  spoke,  seeming  to 
stamp  my  words  on  his  heart.  He  held  out  his  right  hand,  I 
gave  him  my  left,  and  we  clasped  hands — I,  greatly  moved, 
and  he,  without  restraining  two  tears  which  now  trickled  down 
his  thin  cheeks.  The  sight  of  those  tears  wrung  my  heart ; 


54  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

and  I  was  still  more  unnerved  when,  forgetful  of  everything 
in  such  a  moment,  Mongenod,  to  wipe  them  away,  pulled  out 
a  ragged  bandana. 

"  'Wait  here,'  said  I,  running  off  to  my  hidden  store,  my 
heart  as  full  as  though  I  had  heard  a  woman  confess  that  she 
loved  me.  I  returned  with  two  rolls  of  fifty  louis  each. 

"  '  Here — count  them.' 

"  But  he  would  not  count  them ;  he  looked  about  him  for 
a  writing-table  in  order,  as  he  said,  to  give  me  a  receipt.  I 
positively  refused  to  have  one. 

"  'If  I  were  to  die,'  said  I,  'my  heirs  would  worry  you. 
This  is  a  matter  between  you  and  me.' 

"  Finding  me  so  true  a  friend,  Mongenod  presently  lost 
the  haggard  and  anxious  expression  he  had  worn  on  entering, 
and  became  cheerful.  My  housekeeper  gave  us  oysters,  white 
wine,  an  omelette,  kidneys  a  la  brochette  (spitted),  and  the 
remains  of  a  Chartres  pasty,  sent  me  by  my  mother ;  a  little 
dessert,  coffee,  and  West  Indian  liqueur.  Mongenod,  who 
had  fasted  for  two  days,  was  the  better  for  it.  We  sat  till 
three  in  the  afternoon  talking  over  our  life  before  the  Revolu- 
tion, the  best  friends  in  the  world. 

"Mongenod  told  me  how  he  had  lost  his  fortune.  In  the 
first  instance,  the  reduction  of  the  dividends  on  the  Hotel  de 
Ville  had  deprived  him  of  two-thirds  of  his  income,  for  his 
father  had  invested  the  larger  part  of  his  fortune  in  municipal 
securities;  then,  after  selling  his  house  in  the  Ruede  Savoie,  he 
had  been  obliged  to  accept  payment  in  assignats  ;  he  had  then 
taken  it  into  his  head  to  run  a  newspaper,  'La  Sentinelle,' 
and  at  the  end  of  six  months  was  forced  to  fly.  At  the  present 
moment  all  his  hopes  hung  on  the  success  of  a  comic  opera 
called  '  Les  Peruviens.'  This  last  confession  made  me 
quake.  Mongenod,  as  an  author,  having  spent  his  all  on  the 
'Sentinelle,'  and  living  no  doubt  at  the  theatre,  mixed  up 
with  Feydeau's  singers,  with  musicians,  and  the  motley  world 
behind  the  curtain,  did  not  seem  to  me  like  the  same,  like  my 


"/    AM    ALAIN,    MONGENOD'S    FRIEND. 


THE   SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY.  55 

Mongenod.  I  shuddered  a  little.  But  how  could  I  get  back 
my  hundred  louis  ?  I  could  see  the  two  rolls,  one  in  each  fob 
like  the  barrel  of  a  pistol. 

"  Mongenod  went  away.  When  I  found  myself  alone,  no 
longer  face  to  face  with  his  bitter  and  cruel  poverty,  I  began 
to  reflect  in  spite  of  myself;  I  was  sober  again.  'Monge- 
nod,' thought  I  to  myself,  'has  no  doubt  sunk  as  low  as  pos- 
sible ;  he  has  acted  a  little  farce  for  my  benefit ! '  His  glee 
when  he  saw  me  calmly  hand  over  so  vast  a  sum  now  struck 
me  as  that  of  a  stage  rascal  cheating  some  Geronte.  I  ended 
where  I  ought  to  have  begun,  resolved  to  make  some  inquiries 
about  my  friend  Mongenod,  who  had  written  his  address  on 
the  back  of  a  playing-card. 

"A  feeling  of  delicacy  kept  me  from  going  to  see  him  the 
next  day ;  he  might  have  ascribed  my  haste  to  distrust  of  him. 
Two  days  after  I  found  my  whole  time  absorbed  by  various 
business  ;  and  it  was  not,  in  fact,  till  a  fortnight  had  elapsed 
that,  seeing  no  more  of  Mongenod,  I  made  my  way  from  La 
Croix-Rouge,  where  I  then  lived,  to  the  Rue  des  Moineaux, 
where  he  lived. 

"  Mongenod  was  lodged  in  a  furnished  house  of  the  meanest 
description  ;  but  his  landlady  was  a  very  decent  woman,  the 
widow  of  a  farmer-general  who  had  died  on  the  scaffold. 
She,  completely  ruined,  had  started  with  a  few  louis  the  pre- 
carious business  of  letting  rooms.  Since  then  she  has  rented 
seven  houses  in  the  neighborhood  of  Saint-Roch  and  made  a 
fortune. 

"  '  Citizen  Mongenod  is  out,'  said  she.  '  But  there  is  some 
one  at  home.' 

"This  excited  my  curiosity.  I  climbed  to  the  sixth  floor. 
A  charming  young  woman  opened  the  door  !  Oh  !  A  per- 
son of  exquisite  beauty,  who,  looking  at  me  doubtfully,  stood 
behind  the  partly  opened  door. 

"  '  I  am  Alain,'  said  I,  '  Mongenod's  friend.' 

"At  once  the  door  was  wide  open,  and  I  went  into  a  hor- 


56  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

rible  garret,  which  the  young  woman  had,  however,  kept 
scrupulously  clean.  She  pushed  forward  a  chair  to  the  hearth 
piled  with  ashes,  but  with  no  fire,  where  in  one  corner  I  saw  a 
common  earthenware  foot-warmer.  The  cold  was  icy. 

"  'I  am  glad,  indeed,  monsieur,'  said  she,  taking  my  hands 
and  pressing  them  warmly,  '  to  be  able  to  express  my  grati- 
tude, for  you  are  our  deliverer.  But  for  you  I  might  never 
have  seen  Mongenod  again.  He  would  have — God  knows — 
have  thrown  himself  into  the  river.  He  was  desperate  when 
he  set  out  to  see  you.' 

"As  I  looked  at  the  young  lady  I  was  greatly  astonished  to 
see  that  she  had  a  handkerchief  bound  about  her  head ;  and 
below  its  folds  at  the  back  and  on  the  temples  there  was  a  sort 
of  black  shadow.  Studying  it  attentively,  I  discovered  that 
her  head  was  shaved. 

"  'Are  you  ill  ?  '  I  asked,  noticing  this  strange  fact. 

"  She  glanced  at  herself  in  a  wretched,  dirty  pier-glass,  and 
colored,  while  tears  rose  to  her  eyes. 

"'Yes,  monsieur,'  said  she  hastily;  'I  had  dreadful  head- 
aches; I  was  obliged  to  cut  off  my  hair,  which  fell  to  my 
heels ' 

"  '  Have  I  the  honor  of  speaking  to  Madame  Mongenod  ? ' 
I  asked. 

"'Yes,  monsieur,'  said  she,  with  a  really  heavenly  ex- 
pression. 

"I  made  my  bow  to  the  poor  little  lady,  and  went  down- 
stairs, intending  to  make  the  landlady  give  me  some  informa- 
tion, but  she  was  gone  out.  It  struck  me  that  the  young 
woman  had  sold  her  hair  to  buy  bread.  I  went  off  at  once  to 
a  wood  merchant,  and  sent  in  half  a  load  of  wood,  begging 
the  carter  and  the  sawyers  to  give  the  lady  a  receipted  bill 
in  the  name  of  Mongenod. 

"And  there  ends  the  phase  of  my  life  which  I  long  called 
my  foolish  stage,"  said  Monsieur  Alain,  clasping  his  hands  and 
uplifting  them  a  little  with  a  repentant  gesture. 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  57 

Godefroid  could  not  help  smiling ;  but  he  was,  as  will  be 
seen,  quite  wrong  to  smile. 

"Two  days  later,"  the  good  man  went  on,  "I  met  one  of 
those  men  who  are  neither  friends  nor  strangers — persons 
whom  we  see  from  time  to  time,  in  short,  an  acquaintance,  as 
we  say — a  Monsieur  Barillaud,  who,  as  we  happened  to  speak 
of  '  Les  Peruviens,'  proclaimed  himself  a  friend  of  the  au- 
thor's. 

"  '  Thou  know'st  Citizen  Mongenod  ?  '  said  I — for  at  that 
time  we  were  still  required  by  law  to  address  each  other  with 
the  familiar  ///,"  said  he  to  Godefroid  in  a  parenthesis. 

"  The  citizen  looked  at  me,"  said  Monsieur  Alain,  resuming 
the  thread  of  his  story,  and  exclaimed — 

"  '  I  only  wish  I  had  never  known  him,  for  he  has  borrowed 
money  of  me  many  a  time,  and  is  so  much  my  friend  as  not 
to  return  it.  He  is  a  queer  fellow !  the  best  old  boy  alive,  but 
full  of  illusions?  An  imagination  of  fire.  I  will  do  him 
justice  ;  he  does  not  mean  to  be  dishonest,  only  as  he  is  always 
deceiving  himself  about  a  thousand  things,  he  is  led  into  con- 
duct that  is  not  altogether  straight.' 

"  '  How  much  does  he  owe  you?  ' 

"  '  Oh,  a  few  hundred  crowns.  He  is  a  regular  sieve.  No 
one  knows  where  his  money  goes,  for  he,  perhaps,  does  not 
know  that  himself.' 

"  '  Has  he  any  expedients?' 

"  '  Oh,  .dear,  yes  ! '  said  Barillaud,  laughing.  'At  this  mo- 
ment he  is  talking  of  buying  up  land  among  the  wild  men  in 
the  United  States.' 

"  I  went  away  with  this  drop  of  vitriol  shed  by  slander  on 
my  heart  to  turn  all  my  best  feelings  sour.  I  went  to  call  on 
my  old  master  in  the  law,  who  was  always  my  counselor.  As 
soon  as  I  had  told  him  the  secret  of  my  loan  to  Mongenod  and 
the  way  in  which  I  had  acted : 

"  'What,'  cried  he,  'is  it  a  clerk  of  mine  that  can  behave 
so?  You  should  have  put  him  off  a  day  and  have  come  to  me. 


58  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY. 

Then  you  would  have  known  that  I  had  shown  Mongenod  the 
door.  He  has  already  borrowed  from  me  in  the  course  of  a 
year  more  than  a  hundred  crowns  in  silver,  an  enormous  sum  ! 
And  only  three  days  before  he  went  to  breakfast  with  you,  he 
met  me  in  the  street  and  described  his  misery  in  such  desperate 
language  that  I  gave  him  two  louis.' 

"  'Well,  if  I  am  the  dupe  of  a  clever  actor,  so  much  the 
worse  for  him  rather  than  for  me  ! '  said  I.  '  But  what  is  to 
be  done?' 

"  'At  any  rate,  you  must  try  to  get  some  acknowledgment 
out  of  him,  for  a  debtor  however  worthless  may  recover  him- 
self, and  then  you  may  be  paid.' 

"  Thereupon  Bordin  took  out  of  one  of  the  drawers  of  his 
table  a  wrapper  on  which  was  written  the  name  of  Mongenod  ; 
he  showed  me  three  acknowledgments,  each  for  a  hundred 
livres. 

"  '  The  first  time  he  comes,'  said  he,  '  I  shall  make  him  add 
on  the  interest  and  the  two  louis  I  gave  him,  and  whatever 
money  he  asks  for ;  and  then  he  must  sign  an  acceptance  and 
a  statement,  saying  that  interest  accrues  from  the  day  of  the 
first  loan.  That,  at  any  rate,  will  be  all  in  order;  I  shall  find 
some  means  of  getting  paid.' 

"'Well,  then,'  said  I  to  Bordin,  'cannot  you  put  me  as 
much  in  order  as  yourself?  For  you  are  an  honest  man,  and 
what  you  do  will  be  right.' 

"  '  In  this  way  I  remain  the  master  of  the  field,'  replied  the 
lawyer.  '  When  a  man  behaves  as  you  have  done,  he  is  at 
the  mercy  of  another  who  may  simply  make  game  of  him. 
Now  I  don't  choose  to  be  laughed  at.  A  retired  public  prose- 
cutor of  the  Chatelet  !  Bless  me,  what  next  ?  Every  man  to 
whom  you  lend  money  as  recklessly  as  you  lent  it  to  Mon- 
genod, sooner  or  later  thinks  of  it  as  his  own.  It  is  no  longer 
your  money ;  it  is  his  money  ;  you  are  his  creditor,  a  very  in- 
convenient person.  The  debtor  then  tries  to  be  quit  of  you 
by  a  compromise  with  his  conscience,  and  seventy-five  out 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  59 

of  every  hundred  will  try  to  avoid  meeting  you  again  to  the 
end  of  his  days ' 

"  'Then  you  look  for  no  more  than  twenty-five  per  cent,  of 
honest  men  ? ' 

"  '  Did  I  say  so  ? '  said  he,  with  an  ironical  smile.  '  That 
is  a  large  allowance  ! ' 

"A  fortnight  later  I  had  a  note  from  Bordin  desiring  me  to 
call  on  him  to  fetch  my  receipt.  I  went. 

"  '  I  tried  to  snatch  back  fifty  louis  for  you,'  said  he.  I 
had  told  him  all  about  my  conversation  with  Mongenod. 
'  But  the  birds  are  flown.  You  may  say  good-by  to  your 
yellow-boys  !  Your  canary-birds  have  fled  to  warmer  climes. 
We  have  a  very  cunning  rascal  to  deal  with.  Did  he  not 
assure  me  that  his  wife  and  his  father-in-law  had  set  out  for 
the  United  States  with  sixty  of  your  louis  to  buy  land,  and 
that  he  intended  to  join  them  there?  To  make  a  fortune,  as 
he  said,  so  as  to  return  to  pay  his  debts,  of  which  he  handed 
me  the  schedule  drawn  out  in  due  form ;  for  he  begged  me  to 
keep  myself  informed  as  to  what  became  of  his  creditors. 
Here  is  the  schedule,'  added  Bordin,  showing  me  a  wrapper 
on  which  was  noted  the  total.  *  Seventeen  thousand  francs 
in  hard  cash  !  With  such  a  sum  as  that  a  house  might  be 
bought  worth  two  thousand  crowns  a  year.' 

"After  replacing  the  packet,  he  gave  me  a  bill  of  exchange 
for  a  sum  equivalent  to  a  hundred  louis  in  gold,  stated  in 
assignats,  with  a  letter  in  which  Mongenod  acknowledged  the 
debt  with  interest  on  a  hundred  louis  d'or. 

"  '  So  now  I  am  all  safe  ?  '  said  I  to  Bordin. 

"  '  He  will  not  deny  the  debt,'  replied  my  old  master. 
*  But  where  there  are  no  effects,  even  the  King — that  is  to  say, 
the  Directory — has  no  rights.' 

"  I  thereupon  left  him.  Believing  myself  to  have  been 
robbed  by  a  trick  that  evades  the  law,  I  withdrew  my  esteem 
from  Mongenod,  and  was  very  philosophically  resigned. 

"  It  is  not  without  a  reason  that  I  dwell  on  these  common- 


60  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

place  and  apparently  unimportant  details,"  the  good  man 
went  on,  looking  at  Godefroid.  "  I  am  trying  to  show  you 
how  I  was  led  to  act  as  most  men  act,  blindly,  and  in  con- 
tempt of  certain  rules  which  even  savages  do  not  disregard  in 
the  most  trifling  matters.  Many  men  would  justify  themselves 
by  the  authority  of  Bordin ;  but  at  this  day  I  feel  that  I  had 
no  excuse.  As  soon  as  we  are  led  to  condemn  one  of  our 
fellows,  and  to  refuse  him  our  esteem  for  life,  we  ought  to 
rely  solely  on  our  own  judgment — and  even  then  ! — ought  we 
to  set  up  our  own  feelings  as  a  tribunal  before  which  to  arraign 
our  neighbor  ?  Where  would  the  law  be  ?  What  should  be 
our  standard  of  merit  ?  Would  not  a  weakness  in  me  be 
strength  in  my  neighbor  ?  So  many  men,  so  many  different 
circumstances  would  there  be  for  each  deed  ;  for  there  are  no 
two  identical  sets  of  conditions  in  human  existence.  Society 
alone  has  the  right  of  reproving  its  members ;  for  I  do  not 
grant  it  that  of  punishing  them.  A  mere  reprimand  is  suffi- 
cient and  brings  with  it  cruelty  enough. 

"  So  as  I  listened  to  the  haphazard  opinions  of  a  Parisian, 
admiring  my  former  teacher's  acumen,  I  condemned  Monge- 
nod,"  the  good  man  went  on,  after  drawing  from  his  narrative 
this  noble  moral. 

"The  performance  of  'Les  Peruviens'  was  announced.  I 
expected  to  have  a  ticket  for  the  first  night ;  I  conceived  my- 
self in  some  way  his  superior.  As  a  result  of  his  indebtedness, 
my  friend  seemed  to  me  a  vassal  who  owed  me  many  things 
beside  the  interest  on  my  money.  We  are  all  alike  ! 

"  Not  only  did  Mongenod  send  me  no  ticket,  but  I  saw 
him  at  a  distance  coming  along  the  dark  passage  under  the 
Theatre  Feydeau,  well  dressed — nay,  almost  elegant;  he  af- 
fected not  to  see  me ;  then,  when  he  had  passed  me,  and  I 
thought  I  would  run  after  him,  he  had  vanished  down  some 
cross-passage.  This  irritated  me  extremely ;  and  my  annoy- 
ance, far  from  being  transient  and  subsiding,  only  increased 
as  time  went  on. 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  61 

"  This  was  why.  A  few  days  after  this  incident  I  wrote  to 
Mongenod  much  in  these  words : 

"  'Mv  FRIEND: — You  should  not  regard  me  as  indifferent 
to  anything  that  can  happen  to  you,  whether  for  good  or 
ill.  Does  the  "Peruviens"  come  up  to  your  expectations? 
You  forgot  me — you  had  every  right  to  do  so — at  the  first 
performance,  when  I  should  have  applauded  you  heartily  ! 
However,  I  hope,  all  the  same,  that  you  may  find  Peru  in  the 
piece,  for  I  can  invest  my  capital,  and  I  count  on  you  when 
the  bill  falls  due.  Your  friend, 

"  'ALAIN.' 

"  After  waiting  for  two  weeks  and  receiving  no  answer,  I 
called  in  the  Rue  des  Moineaux.  The  landlady  told  me  that 
the  little  wife  had,  in  fact,  set  out  with  her  father,  at  the  date 
named  by  Mongenod  to  Bordin.  Mongenod  always  left  his 
garret  early  in  the  morning,  and  did  not  come  in  till  late  at 
night.  Another  fortnight  passed;  I  wrote  another  letter  in 
these  terms  : 

"  '  MY  DEAR  MONGENOD  : — I  see  nothing  of  you  ;  you  do 
not  answer  my  notes  ;  I  cannot  at  all  understand  your  conduct; 
and  if  I  were  to  behave  so  to  you,  what  would  you  think  of 
me?' 

"I  did  not  sign  myself  'Your  friend.'  I  wrote  'With 
best  regards.' 

"A  month  slipped  by;  no  news  of  Mongenod.  The 
'  Peruviens  '  had  not  obtained  so  great  a  success  as  Mon- 
genod had  counted  on.  I  paid  for  a  seat  at  the  twentieth 
performance,  and  I  found  a  small  house.  And  yet  Madame 
Scio  was  very  fine  in  it.  I  was  told  in  the  green-room  that 
there  would  be  a  few  more  performances  of  the  piece.  I  went 
seven  times  to  call  on  Mongenod ;  he  was  never  at  home,  and 


62  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

each  time  I  left  my  name  with  the  landlady.     So  then  I  wrote 
again : 

" '  Monsieur,  if  you  do  not  wish  to  lose  my  respect  after 
forfeiting  my  friendship,  you  will  henceforth  treat  me  as  a 
stranger — that  is  to  say,  with  civility — and  you  will  tell  me 
whether  you  are  prepared  to  pay  me  when  your  note  of  hand 
falls  due.  I  shall  act  in  accordance  with  your  reply.  Yours 
faithfully,  ALAIN.' 

"No  reply.  It  was  now  1799  ;  a  year  had  elapsed  all  but 
two  months. 

"  When  the  bill  fell  due  I  went  to  see  Bordin.  Bordin 
took  the  note  of  hand,  and  then  began  legal  proceedings.  The 
reverses  experienced  by  the  French  armies  had  had  such  a 
depressing  effect  on  the  Funds  that  five  francs  a  year  could  be 
purchased  for  seven  francs.  Thus,  for  a  hundred  louis  in 
gold,  I  might  have  had  nearly  fifteen  hundred  francs  a  year. 
Every  morning,  as  I  read  the  paper  over  my  cup  of  coffee,  I 
would  exclaim — 

"  '  Confound  that  Mongenod  !  But  for  him,  I  could  have 
a  thousand  crowns  a  year ! ' 

"  Mongenod  had  become  my  chronic  aversion  ;  I  thundered 
at  him  even  when  I  was  walking  in  the  street. 

"  '  Bordin  is  after  him  !  '  said  I  to  myself.  '  He  will  catch 
him — and  serve  him  right ! ' 

"  My  rage  expended  itself  in  imprecations  :  I  cursed  the 
man ;  I  believed  him  capable  of  any  crime.  Yes,  Monsieur 
Barillaud  was  quite  right  in  what  he  said. 

"  Well,  one  morning  my  debtor  walked  in,  no  more  discon- 
certed than  if  he  had  not  owed  me  a  centime ;  and  I,  when 
I  saw  him,  I  felt  all  the  shame  that  should  have  been  his.  I 
was  like  a  criminal  caught  in  the  act ;  I  was  quite  ill  at  ease. 
The  iSth  of  Brumaire*  was  past,  everything  was  cjoin?  on 

i  «f  O  O  O 

*  Second  month  of  the  Republican  Kalendar,  Oct.  25  to  Nov.  21. 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HIS  TO  X  Y.  63 

well,  and  Bonaparte  had  set  out  to  fight  the  battle  of  Ma- 
rengo. 

"'It  is  unlucky,  monsieur,'  said  I,  'that  I  should  owe 
your  visit  solely  to  the  intervention  of  a  bailiff.' 

"  Mongenod  took  a  chair  and  sat  down. 

"  '  I  have  come  to  tell  you,'  said  he,  with  the  familiar  /fc, 
'that  I  cannot  possibly  pay  you.' 

"'You  have  lost  me  the  chance  of  investing  my  money 
before  the  arrival  of  the  First  Consul — at  that  time  I  could 
have  made  a  little  fortune ' 

"  '  I  know  it,  Alain,'  said  he;  'I  know  it.  But  what  will 
you  get  by  prosecuting  me  for  debt  and  plunging  me  deeper 
by  loading  me  with  costs  ?  I  have  letters  from  my  father-in- 
law  and  my  wife ;  they  have  bought  some  land  and  sent  me 
the  bill  for  the  necessaries  of  the  house;  I  have  had  to 
spend  all  I  had  in  those  purchases.  Now,  and  nobody  can 
hinder  me — I  mean  to  sail  by  a  Dutch  vessel  from  Flushing, 
whither  I  have  sent  all  my  small  possessions.  Bonaparte 
has  won  the  battle  of  Marengo,  peace  will  be  signed,  and 
I  can  join  my  family  without  fear — for  my  dear  little  wife  was 
expecting  a  baby.' 

"  '  And  so  you  have  sacrificed  me  to  your  own  interests?' 
cried  I. 

"'Yes,'  said  he ;  '  I  thought  you  my  friend.' 

"At  that  moment  I  felt  small  as  compared  to  Mongenod, 
so  sublime  did  that  speech  seem  to  me,  so  simple  and  grand. 

"  '  Did  I  not  tell  you  so,'  he  went  on  ;  '  was  I  not  absolutely 
frank  with  you — here,  on  this  very  spot?  I  came  to  you, 
Alain,  as  being  the  only  man  who  would  appreciate  me. 
Fifty  louis  would  be  wasted,  I  told  you;  but  if  you  lent  me  a 
hundred,  I  would  repay  them.  I  fixed  no  date,  for  how  can 
I  tell  when  my  long  struggle  with  poverty  will  come  to  an 
end?  You  were  my  last  friend.  All  my  friends,  even  our 
old  master  Bordin,  despised  me  simply  because  I  wanted  to 
borrow  money  of  them.  Oh  !  Alain,  you  can  never  know  the 


64  THE   SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

dreadful  feelings  that  grip  the  heart  of  an  honest  man  fighting 
misfortune  when  he  goes  into  another  man's  house  to  ask  for 

help  !  and  all  that  follows I  hope  you  may  never  know 

them ;  they  are  worse  than  the  anguish  of  death  ! 

"  '  You  have  written  me  certain  letters  which,  from  me 
under  similar  circumstances,  would  have  struck  you  as  odious. 
You  expected  things  of  me  that  were  out  of  my  power.  You 
are  the  only  man  to  whom  I  attempt  to  justify  myself.  In 
spite  of  your  severity,  and  though  you  ceased  to  be  my  friend 
and  became  only  my  creditor  from  the  day  when  Bordin  asked 
me  for  an  acknowledgment  of  your  loan,  thus  discrediting  the 
handsome  agreement  we  ourselves  had  come  to,  here,  shaking 
hands  on  it  with  tears  in  our  eyes !  Well,  I  have  forgotten 
everything  but  that  morning's  work. 

"  'It  is  in  memory  of  that  hour  that  I  have  come  now  to 
say,  "  You  know  not  what  misfortune  is ;  do  not  rail  at  it !  I 
have  not  had  an  hour,  not  a  second,  to  write  you  in  reply ! 
Perhaps  you  would  have  liked  me  to  come  and  pay  you  com- 
pliments? You  might  as  well  expect  a  hare,  harassed  by  dogs 
and  hunters,  to  rest  in  a  clearing  and  crop  the  grass  !  I  sent 
you  no  ticket !  No ;  I  had  not  enough  to  satisfy  those  on 
whom  my  fate  depended.  A  novice  in  the  theatrical  world,  I 
was  the  prey  of  musicians,  actors,  singers,  the  orchestra.  To 
enable  me  to  join  my  family  over  seas,  and  buy  what  they 
need,  I  sold  the  '  Peruviens '  to  the  manager  with  two  other 
pieces  I  had  in  my  desk.  I  am  setting  out  for  Holland  with- 
out a  sou.  I  shall  eat  dry  bread  on  my  journey  till  I  reach 
Flushing.  I  have  paid  my  passage,  and  have  nothing  more. 
But  for  my  landlady's  compassion,  and  her  trust  in  me,  I 
should  have  had  to  walk  to  Flushing  with  a  knapsack  on  my 
back.  And  so,  in  spite  of  your  doubting  me,  as,  but  for  you, 
I  could  not  have  sent  my  father-in-law  and  my  wife  to  New 
York,  I  am  entirely  grateful."  No,  Monsieur  Alain,  I  will 
not  forget  that  the  hundred  louis  you  lent  me  might  at  this 
time  be  yielding  you  an  income  of  fifteen  hundred  francs.' 


THE   SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  65 

"'I  would  fain  believe  you,  Mongenod,'  said  I,  almost 
convinced  by  the  tone  in  which  he  poured  out  this  explanation. 

"'At  any  rate,  you  no  longer  address  me  as  monsieur,' 
said  he  eagerly,  and  looking  at  me  with  emotion.  '  God 
knows  I  should  quit  France  with  less  regret  if  I  could  leave 
one  man  behind  me  in  whose  eyes  I  was  neither  half  a  rogue, 
nor  a  spendthrift,  nor  a  victim  to  illusions.  A  man  who  can 
love  truly,  Alain,  is  never  wholly  despicable.' 

"At  these  words  I  held  out  my  hand;  he  took  it  and 
pressed  it. 

"  '  Heaven  protect  you  !  '  said  I. 

"  '  We  are  still  friends? '  he  asked. 

"  '  Yes,'  I  replied ;  '  it  shall  never  be  said  that  my  school- 
fellow, the  friend  of  my  youth,  set  out  for  America  under  the 
ban  of  my  anger  ! ' 

"  Mongenod  embraced  me  with  tears  in  his  eyes,  and  rushed 
off  to  the  door. 

"  When  I  met  Bordin  a  few  days  afterward,  I  told  him  the 
story  of  our  interview,  and  he  replied  with  a  smile — 

"  '  I  only  hope  it  was  not  all  part  of  the  performance !  He 
did  not  ask  you  for  anything?' 

"  '  No,'  said  I. 

"  '  He  came  to  me,  too,  and  I  was  almost  as  weak  as  you ; 
but  he  asked  me  for  something  to  get  food  on  the  way.  How- 
ever, he  who  lives  will  see  ! ' 

"This  remark  of  Bordin's  made  me  fear  lest  I  had  yielded 
stupidly  to  an  impulse  of  feeling. 

"  'Still,  he  too,  the  public  prosecutor,  did  the  same,'  said 
I  to  myself. 

"It  is  unnecessary,  I  think,  to  explain  to  you  how  I  lost  all 
my  fortune  excepting  the  other  hundred  louis,  which  I  in- 
vested in  Government  securities  when  prices  had  risen  so  high 
that  I  had  barely  five  hundred  francs  a  year  to  live  upon  by 
the  time  I  was  four-and-thirty.  By  Bordin's  interest  I  ob- 
tained an  appointment  at  eight  hundred  francs  a  year  in  a 
5 


66  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

branch  of  the  Mont  de  Piete  (the  State  pawn-office),  Rue  des 
Petits  Augustins.  I  lived  in  the  humblest  way ;  I  lodged  on 
the  fourth  floor  of  a  house  in  the  Rue  des  Marais,  in  an  apart- 
ment consisting  of  two  rooms  and  a  closet,  for  two  hundred 
and  fifty  francs.  I  went  out  to  dinner  in  a  boarding-house 
where  there  was  an  open  table,  and  for  this  I  paid  forty  francs 
a  month.  In  the  evening  I  did  some  copying.  Ugly  as  I  am, 

and  very  poor,  I  had  to  give  up  all  ideas  of  marriage " 

•  As  he  heard  this  verdict  pronounced  on  himself  by  poor 
Alain  in  a  tone  of  angelic  resignation,  Godefroid  gave  a  little 
start,  which  proved  better  than  any  speech  could  have  done 
the  similarity  of  their  fate;  and  the  good  man,  in  reply  to 
this  eloquent  gesture,  seemed  to  pause  for  his  hearer  to  speak. 

"  And  no  one  ever  loved  you  ?  "  asked  Godefroid. 

"No  one,"  he  replied,  "excepting  madame,  who  returns 
to  each  of  us  alike  our  love  for  her — a  love  I  might  almost 
call  divine.  You  must  have  seen  it ;  we  live  in  her  life,  as  she 
lives  in  ours ;  we  have  but  one  soul  among  us ;  and  though 
our  enjoyments  are  not  physical,  they  are  none  the  less  very 
intense,  for  we  live  only  through  the  heart.  How  can  we 
help  it,  my  dear  boy  ?  By  the  time  women  are  capable  of 
appreciating  moral  qualities,  they  have  done  with  externals, 
and  are  growing  old.  I  have  suffered  much,  I  can  tell  you  !  " 

"  Ah  !  that  is  the  stage  I  am  at- "  said  Godefroid. 

"Under  the  Empire,"  the  old  man  went  on,  bowing  his 
head,  "  dividends  were  not  very  punctually  paid  ;  we  had  to 
be  prepared  for  deferred  payment.  From  1802  to  1814  not  a 
week  passed  that  I  did  not  ascribe  my  difficulties  to  Mongenod : 
'But  for  Mongenod,'  I  used  to  think,  'I  might  have  been 
married.  But  for  him  I  should  not  be  obliged  to  live  in 
privation.'  But  sometimes,  too,  I  would  say  to  myself,  'Per- 
haps the  poor  man  is  pursued  by  ill-luck  out  there  !  ' 

"  In  1806,  one  day  when  I  found  my  life  a  heavy  burden 
to  bear,  I  wrote  him  a  long  letter  that  I  dispatched  via  Hol- 
land. I  had  no  answer ;  and  for  three  years  I  waited,  found- 


THE   SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  67 

ing  hopes  on  that  reply  which  were  constantly  deceived.  At 
last  I  resigned  myself  to  my  fate.  To  my  five  hundred  francs 
of  dividends,  and  twelve  hundred  francs  of  salary  from  the 
Mont  de  Piete,  for  it  was  raised,  I  added  five  hundred  for  my 
work  as  bookkeeper  to  a  perfumer,  Monsieur  Birotteau.  Thus 
I  not  only  made  both  ends  meet,  but  I  saved  eight  hundred 
francs  a  year.  By  the  beginning  of  1814,  I  was  able  to  invest 
nine  thousand  francs  of  savings  in  the  funds,  buying  at  forty  ; 
thus  I  had  secured  sixteen  hundred  francs  a  year  for  my  old 
age.  So  then,  with  fifteen  hundred  francs  a  year  from  the 
Mont  de  Piete,  six  hundred  as  a  bookkeeper,  and  sixteen 
hundred  in  dividends,  I  had  an  income  of  three  thousand 
seven  hundred  francs.  I  took  rooms  in  the  Rue  de  Seine, 
and  lived  in  rather  more  comfort. 

"  My  position  brought  me  into  contact  with  many  of  the 
very  poor.  For  twelve  years  I  have  known,  better  than  any 
one,  what  the  misery  of  the  world  is ;  once  or  twice  I  have 
helped  some  poor  creatures ;  and  I  felt  the  keenest  pleasure 
when,  out  of  ten  that  I  had  assisted,  one  or  two  families  were 
rescued  from  their  difficulties. 

"It  struck  me  that  true  beneficence  did  not  consist  in 
throwing  money  to  the  sufferers.  Being  charitable,  in  the 
common  phrase,  often  appeared  to  me  to  be  a  sort  of  premium 
on  crime.  I  set  to  work  to  study  this  question.  I  was  by 
this  time  fifty  years  old,  and  my  life  was  drawing  to  a  close. 

"  'What  good  am  I  in  the  world  ?'  I  asked  myself.  '  To 
whom  can  I  leave  my  money?  When  I  shall  have  furnished 
my  rooms  handsomely,  have  secured  a  good  cook,  have  made 
my  life  suitably  comfortable,  what  am  I  to  do  with  my  time?' 

"  For  eleven  years  of  revolutions  and  fifteen  years  of  pov- 
erty had  wasted  the  happiest  part  of  my  life,  had  consumed  it 
in  labors  that  were  fruitless,  or  devoted  solely  to  the  preserva- 
tion of  my  person  !  At  such  an  age  no  one  can  make  an 
obscure  and  penurious  youth  the  starting-point  to  reach  a 
brilliant  position  ;  but  every  one  may  make  himself  useful.  I 


68  THE   SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

understood,  in  short,  that  a  certain  supervision  and  much 
good  advice  would  increase  tenfold  the  value  of  money  given, 
for  the  poor  always  need  guidance  to  enable  them  to  profit 
by  the  work  they  do  for  others,  it  is  not  the  intelligence  of 
the  speculator  that  is  wanting  to  deceive  them. 

"A  few  happy  results  that  I  achieved  made  me  extremely 
proud.  I  discerned  both  an  aim  and  an  occupation,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  exquisite  pleasure  to  be  derived  from  playing 
the  part  of  Providence,  even  on  the  smallest  scale." 

"  And  you  now  play  it  on  a  large  scale?"  said  Godefroid 
eagerly. 

"Oh,  you  want  to  know  too  much  !  "  said  the  old  man. 
"  Nay,  nay.  Would  you  believe  it,"  he  went  on  after  a 
pause,  "  the  smallness  of  the  means  at  my  command  constantly 
brought  my  thoughts  back  to  Mongenod  ? 

"'But  for  Mongenod  I  could  have  done  so  much  more,' 
I  used  to  reflect.  '  If  a  dishonest  man  had  not  robbed  me  of 
fifteen  hundred  francs  a  year,'  I  often  thought,  '  I  could  have 
helped  this  or  that  family.' 

"  Thus  excusing  my  inability  by  such  an  accusation,  those 
to  whom  I  gave  nothing  but  words  to  comfort  them  joined 
me  in  cursing  Mongenod.  These  maledictions  were  balm  to 
my  heart. 

"One  morning,  in  January,  1816,  my  housekeeper  an- 
nounced— whom  do  you  think  ? — Mongenod.  Monsieur  Mon- 
genod. And  who  should  walk  in  but  the  pretty  wife,  now 
six-and-thirty,  accompanied  by  three  children ;  then  came 
Mongenod,  younger  than  when  he  left,  for  wealth  and  happi- 
ness shed  a  glory  on  those  they  favor.  He  had  gone  away 
lean,  pale,  yellow,  and  haggard  ;  he  had  come  back  fat  and 
well-liking,  as  flourishing  as  a  prebendary,  and  well  dressed. 
He  threw  himself  into  my  arms,  and,  finding  himself  coldly 
welcomed,  his  first  words  were — 

"  'Could  I  come  any  sooner,  my  friend?  The  seas  have 
only  been  open  since  1815,  and  it  took  me  eighteen  months  to 


THE   SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  69 

realize  my  property,  close  my  accounts,  and  call  in  my  assets. 
I  have  succeeded,  my  friend  !  When  I  received  your  letter 
in  1806,  I  set  out  in  a  Dutch  vessel  to  bring  you  home  a  little 
fortune ;  but  the  union  of  Holland  with  the  French  Empire  led 
to  our  being  taken  by  the  English,  who  transported  me  to  the 
coast  of  Jamaica,  whence  by  good-luck  I  escaped. 

"  'On  my  return  to  New  York  I  was  a  victim  to  bank- 
ruptcy ;  for  Charlotte,  during  my  absence,  had  not  known  how 
to  be  on  her  guard  against  swindlers.  So  I  was  compelled  to 
begin  again  to  accumulate  a  fortune. 

"  '  However,  here  we  are  at  last.  From  the  way  the  children 
look  at  you,  you  may  suppose  that  they  have  often  heard  of 
the  benefactor  of  the  family.' 

"  '  Yes,  indeed,'  said  pretty  Madame  Mongenod,  'we  never 
passed  a  day  without  speaking  of  you.  Your  share  has  been 
allowed  for  in  every  transaction.  We  have  longed  for  the 
happiness  we  enjoy  at  this  moment  of  offering  you  your  for- 
tune, though  we  have  never  for  a  moment  imagined  that  this 
"  rector's  tithe  "  can  pay  our  debt  of  gratitude.' 

"And,  as  she  spoke,  Madame  Mongenod  offered  me  the 
beautiful  casket  you  see  there,  which  contained  a  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand-franc  notes. 

"'You  have  suffered  much,  my  dear  Alain,  I  know;  but 
we  could  imagine  all  your  sufferings,  and  we  racked  our  brains 
to  find  means  of  sending  you  money,  but  without  success,' 
Mongenod  went  on.  '  You  tell  me  you  could  not  marry;  but 
here  is  our  eldest  daughter.  She  has  been  brought  up  in  the 
idea  that  she  should  be  your  wife,  and  she  has  five  hundred 
thousand  francs ' 

"  '  God  forbid  that  I  should  wreck  her  happiness  !  '  cried  I, 
as  I  beheld  a  girl  as  lovely  as  her  mother  had  been  at  her 
age ;  and  I  drew  her  to  me,  and  kissed  her  forehead. 

"  '  Do  not  be  afraid,  my  pretty  child,'  said  I.  'A  man  of 
fifty  and  a  girl  of  seventeen — and  so  ugly  an  old  fellow  as  I ! 
Never!' 


70  THE   SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

"  'Monsieur/  said  she,  'my  father's  benefactor  can  never 
seem  ugly  in  my  eyes.' 

"This  speech,  made  with  spontaneous  candor,  showed  me 
that  all  Mongenod  had  told  me  was  true.  I  offered  him  my 
hand,  and  we  fell  into  each  other's  arms  once  more. 

"  '  My  friend,'  said   I,  '  I  have  often  abused  you,  cursed 


you 

"'You  had  every  right,  Alain,'  replied  he,  reddening. 
*  You  were  in  poverty  through  my  fault — 

"  I  took  Mongenod's  papers  out  of  a  box  and  restored  them 
to  him,  after  canceling  his  note  of  hand. 

"  '  Now,  you  will  all  breakfast  with  me,'  said  I  to  the  family 
party. 

"  'On  condition  of  your  dining  with  my  wife  as  soon  as  we 
are  settled,'  said  Mongenod,  '  for  we  arrived  only  yesterday. 
We  are  going  to  buy  a  house,  and  I  am  about  to  open  a  bank 
in  Paris  for  North  American  business  to  leave  to  that  young- 
ster,' he  said,  pointing  to  his  eldest  son,  a  lad  of  about  fifteen 
years. 

"We  spent  the  afternoon  together,  and  in  the  evening  we 
all  went  to  the  theatre,  for  Mongenod  and  his  party  were 
dying  to  see  a  play.  Next  day  I  invested  in  the  Funds,  and 
had  then  an  income  of  about  fifteen  thousand  francs  in  all. 
This  released  me  from  bookkeeping  in  the  evening,  and  al- 
lowed me  to  give  up  my  appointment,  to  the  great  satisfaction 
of  all  my  subordinates. 

"My  friend  died  in  1827,  after  founding  the  banking-house 
of  Mongenod  &  Co.,  which  made  immense  profits  on  the  first 
loans  issued  at  the  time  of  the  Restoration.  His  daughter, 
to  whom  he  subsequently  gave  about  a  million  of  francs, 
married  the  Vicomte  de  Fontaine.  The  son  whom  you  know 
is  not  yet  married  ;  he  lives  with  his  mother  and  his  younger 
brother.  We  find  them  ready  with  all  the  money  we  may 
need. 

"  Frederic — for  his  father,  in  America,  had  named  him  after 


THE   SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  71 

me — Frederic  Mongenod,  at  seven-and-thirty,  is  one  of  the 
most  skillful  and  respected  bankers  in  Paris. 

"  Not  very  long  since  Madame  Mongenod  confessed  to  me 
that  she  had  sold  her  hair  for  two  crowns  of  six  livres  to  be 
able  to  buy  some  bread.  She  gives  twenty-four  loads  of  wood 
every  year,  which  I  distribute  among  the  poor,  in  return  for 
the  half-load  I  once  sent  her." 

"  Then  this  accounts  for  your  connection  with  the  house 
of  Mongenod,"  said  Godefroid.  "And  your  fortune " 

The  old  man  still  looked  at  Godefroid  with  the  same  expres- 
sion of  mild  irony. 

"  Pray  go  on,"  said  Godefroid,  seeing  by  Monsieur  Alain's 
manner  that  he  had  more  to  say. 

"  This  conclusion,  my  dear  Godefroid,  made  the  deepest 
impression  on  me.  Though  the  man  who  had  suffered  so 
much,  though  my  friend  had  forgiven  me  my  injustice,  I 
could  not  forgive  myself." 

"Oh!"  said  Godefroid. 

"I  determined  to  devote  all  my  surplus  income,  about  ten 
thousand  francs  a  year,  to  acts  of  rational  beneficence,"  Mon- 
sieur Alain  calmly  went  on.  "  At  about  that  time  I  met  an 
examining  judge  of  the  department  of  the  Seine  named  Popi- 
not,  whose  death  we  mourned  three  years  ago,  and  who  for 
fifteen  years  practiced  the  most  enlightened  charity  in  the 
Saint-Marcel  quarter.  He,  in  concert  with  the  venerable  vicar 
of  Notre-Dame  and  with  madame,  planned  the  work  in  which 
we  are  all  engaged,  and  which,  since  1823,  has  secretly 
effected  some  good  results. 

"This  work  has  found  a  soul  in  Madame  de  la  Chanterie ; 
she  is  really  the  very  spirit  of  the  undertaking.  The  vicar 
has  succeeded  in  making  us  more  religious  than  we  were  at 
first,  demonstrating  the  necessity  for  being  virtuous  ourselves 
if  we  desire  to  inspire  virtue — for  preaching,  in  fact,  by 
example.  And  the  further  we  progress  in  that  path,  the 
happier  we  are  among  ourselves.  Thus  it  was  my  repentance 


72  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY. 

for  having  misprized  the  heart  of  my  boyhood's  friend  which 
led  me  to  the  idea  of  devoting  to  the  poor,  through  myself, 
the  fortune  he  brought  home  to  me,  which  I  accepted  without 
demurring  to  the  vast  sum  repaid  to  me  for  so  small  a  loan ; 
the  application  of  it  made  it  right." 

This  narrative,  devoid  of  all  emphasis,  and  told  with 
touching  simplicity  of  tone,  gesture,  and  expression,  would 
have  been  enough  to  make  Godefroid  resolve  on  joining  in 
this  noble  and  saintly  work,  if  he  had  not  already  intended 
it. 

"You  know  little  of  the  world,"  said  Godefroid,  "if  you 
had  such  scruples  over  a  thing  which  would  never  have 
weighed  on  any  other  conscience." 

"I  know  only  the  wretched,"  replied  the  good  man.  "I 
have  no  wish  to  know  a  world  where  men  misjudge  each  other 
with  so  little  compunction.  Now,  it  is  nearly  midnight,  and 
I  have  to  meditate  on  my  chapter  of  the  Imitation.  Good- 
night." 

Godefroid  took  the  kind  old  man's  hand  and  pressed  it  with 
an  impulse  of  genuine  admiration. 

"Can  )'ou  tell  me  Madame  de  la  Chanterie's  history?" 
asked  Godefroid. 

"  It  would  be  impossible  without  her  permission,  for  it  is 
connected  with  one  of  the  most  terrible  incidents  of  imperial 
politics.  I  first  knew  madame  through  my  friend  Bordin  ; 
he  knew  all  the  secrets  of  that  beautiful  life ;  and  it  was  he 
who  led  me,  so  to  speak,  to  this  house." 

"At  any  rate,  then,"  said  Godefroid,  "I  thank  you  for 
having  told  me  your  life  ;  it  contains  a  lesson  for  me." 

"  Do  you  discern  its  moral  ?  " 

"Nay,  tell  it  me,"  said  Godefroid;  "for  I  might  see  it 
differently  to  you " 

"Well,  then,"  said  the  good  man,  "  pleasure  is  but  an  ac- 
cident in  the  life  of  the  Christian  ;  it  is  not  his  aim  and  end — 
and  we  learn  this  too  late." 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  73 

"What  then  happens  when  we  are  converted?"  asked 
Godefroid. 

"Look  there  !  "  said  Alain,  and  he  pointed  to  an  inscrip- 
tion in  letters  of  gold  on  a  black  ground,  which  the  new-comer 
had  not  seen  before,  as  this  was  the  first  time  he  had  ever 
been  into  his  companion's  rooms.  He  turned  round  and 
read  the  words :  TRANSIRE  BENEFACIENDO. 

"That,  my  son,  is  the  meaning  we  then  find  in  life.  That 
is  our  motto.  If  you  become  one  of  us,  that  constitutes  your 
brevet.  We  read  that  text  and  take  it  as  our  counsel  at  every 
hour  of  the  day,  when  we  rise,  when  we  go  to  bed,  while  we 
dress.  Oh  !  if  you  could  but  know  what  infinite  happiness  is 
to  be  found  in  carrying  out  that  device  !  " 

"In  what  way?"  said  Godefroid,  hoping  for  some  ex- 
planations. 

"  In  the  first  place,  we  are  as  rich  as  Baron  de  Nucingen. 
But  the  Imitation  prohibits  our  calling  anything  our  own  ;  we 
are  but  stewards ;  and  if  we  feel  a  single  impulse  of  pride,  we 
are  not  worthy  to  be  stewards.  That  would  not  be  tran- 
sire  bcnefaciendo ;  it  would  be  enjoyment  in  thought.  If 
you  say  to  yourself,  with  a  certain  dilation  of  the  nostrils, 
'  I  am  playing  the  part  of  Providence  ' — as  you  might  have 
thought  this  morning,  if  you  had  been  in  my  place,  giving 
new  life  to  a  whole  family,  you  are  a  Sardanapalus  at  once 
— and  wicked  !  Not  one  of  our  members  ever  thinks  of 
himself  when  doing  good.  You  must  cast  off  all  vanity, 
all  pride,  all  self-consciousness ;  and  it  is  difficult,  I  can  tell 
you." 

Godefroid  bid  Monsieur  Alain  good-night,  and  went  to  his 
own  rooms,  much  moved  by  this  story ;  but  his  curiosity  was 
excited  rather  than  satisfied,  for  the  chief  figure  in  the  picture 
of  this  domestic  scene  was  Madame  de  la  Chanterie.  This 
woman's  history  was  to  him  so  supremely  interesting  that  he 
made  the  knowledge  of  it  the  first  aim  of  his  stay  in  the 
house.  He  understood  that  the  purpose  for  which  these 


74  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

five  persons  were  associated  was  some   great   charitable  en- 
deavor ;  but  he  thought  much  less  of  that  than  of  its  heroine. 

The  neophyte  spent  some  days  in  studying  these  choice 
spirits,  amid  whom  he  found  himself,  with  greater  attention 
than  he  had  hitherto  devoted  to  them ;  and  he  became  the 
subject  of  a  moral  phenomenon  which  modern  philanthropists 
have  overlooked,  from  ignorance  perhaps.  The  sphere  in 
which  he  lived  had  a  direct  influence  on  Godefroid.  The  law 
which  governs  physical  nature  in  respect  to  the  influence  of 
atmospheric  conditions  on  the  lives  of  the  beings  subject  to 
them,  also  governs  moral  nature ;  whence  it  is  to  be  inferred 
that  the  collecting  in  masses  of  the  criminal  class  is  one  of 
the  greatest  social  crimes,  while  absolute  isolation  is  an  experi- 
ment of  which  the  success  is  very  doubtful.  Condemned 
felons  ought,  therefore,  to  be  placed  in  religious  institutions 
and  surrounded  with  prodigies  of  goodness  instead  of  being 
left  among  marvels  of  evil.  The  church  may  be  looked  to  for 
perfect  devotion  to  this  cause ;  for  if  she  is  ready  to  send  mis- 
sionaries to  barbarous  or  savage  nations,  how  gladly  would  she 
charge  her  religious  orders  with  the  mission  of  rescuing 
and  instructing  the  savages  of  civilized  life  !  Every  criminal 
is  an  atheist — often  without  knowing  it. 

Godefroid  found  his  five  companions  endowed  with  the 
qualities  they  demanded  of  him;  they  were  all  free  from  pride 
or  vanity,  all  truly  humble  and  pious,  devoid  of  the  pretenti- 
ousness which  constitutes  "devoutness  "  in  the  invidious  sense 
of  the  word.  These  virtues  were  contagious ;  he  was  filled 
with  the  desire  to  imitate  these  obscure  heroes,  and  he  ended 
by  studying  with  ardor  the  book  he  had  at  first  scorned. 
Within  a  fortnight  he  had  reduced  life  to  its  simplest  expres- 
sion, to  what  it  really  is  when  regarded  from  the  lofty  point 
of  view  to  which  the  religious  spirit  leads  us.  Finally,  his 
curiosity,  at  first  purely  worldly  and  roused  by  many  vulgar 
motives,  became  rarefied.  He  did  not  cease  to  be  curious;  it 


THE   SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  75 

would  have  been  difficult  to  lose  all  interest  in  the  life  of 
Madame  de  la  Chanterie ;  but,  without  intending  it,  he 
showed  a  reserve  which  was  fully  appreciated  by  these  men, 
in  whom  the  Holy  Spirit  had  developed  wonderful  depths  of 
mind,  as  happens,  indeed,  with  all  who  devote  themselves  to 
a  religious  life.  The  concentration  of  the  moral  powers,  by 
whatever  means  or  system,  increases  their  scope  tenfold. 

"  Our  young  friend  is  not  yet  a  convert,"  said  the  good 
Abbe  de  Veze ;  "  but  he  wishes  to  be." 

An  unforeseen  circumstance  led  to  the  revelation  of  Madame 
de  la  Chanterie's  history,  so  that  his  intense  interest  in  it  was 
soon  satisfied. 

Paris  was  just  then  engrossed  by  the  investigation  of  the  case 
of  the  Saint-Jacques  barrier,  one  of  those  hideous  trials  which 
mark  the  history  of  our  assizes.  The  trial  derived  its  interest 
from  the  criminals  themselves,  whose  daring  and  general 
superiority  to  ordinary  culprits,  with  their  cynical  contempt 
for  justice,  really  appalled  the  public.  It  was  a  noteworthy 
fact  that  no  newspaper  ever  entered  the  Hotel  de  la  Chanterie, 
and  Godefroid  only  heard  of  the  rejection  of  the  appeal  to 
the  Supreme  Court  from  his  master  in  bookkeeping ;  the 
trial  had  taken  place  long  before  he  came  to  Madame  de  la 
Chanterie. 

"  Do  you  ever  meet  with  such  men  as  these  atrocious  scoun- 
drels?" he  asked  his  new  friends.  "Or,  when  you  do,  how 
do  you  deal  with  them?  " 

"In  the  first  place,"  said  Monsieur  Nicolas,  "  there  is  no 
such  thing  as  an  atrocious  scoundrel ;  there  are  mad  creatures 
fit  only  for  the  asylum  at  Charenton  ;  but  with  the  exception 
of  those  rare  pathological  exceptions,  what  we  find  are  simply 
men  without  religion,  or  who  argue  falsely,  and  the  task  of  the 
charitable  is  to  set  souls  upright  and  bring  the  erring  into  the 
right  way." 

"And  to  the  apostle  all  things  are  possible,"  said  the  Abbe" 
de  Veze;  " he  has  God  on  his  side." 


76  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

"If  you  were  sent  to  these  two  condemned  men,"  said 
Godefroid,  "you  could  do  nothing  with  them." 

"There  would  not  be  time,"  observed  Monsieur  Alain  very 
seriously. 

"As  a  rule,"  said  Monsieur  Nicolas,  "the  souls  handed 
over  to  be  dealt  with  by  the  church  are  in  utter  impenitence, 
and  the  time  is  too  short  for  miracles  to  be  wrought.  The 
men  of  whom  you  are  speaking,  if  they  had  fallen  into  our 
hands,  would  have  been  men  of  mark ;  their  energy  is  im- 
mense; but  when  once  they  have  committed  murder,  it  is 
impossible  to  do  anything  for  them ;  human  justice  has  taken 
possession  of  them " 

"Then  you  are  averse  to  capital  punishment?"  said  Gode- 
froid. 

Monsieur  Nicolas  hastily  rose  and  left  the  room. 

"  Never  speak  of  capital  punishment  in  the  presence  of 
Monsieur  Nicolas.  He  once  recognized  in  a  criminal,  whose 
execution  it  was  his  duty  to  superintend,  a  natural  child  of  his 
own " 

"And  who  was  innocent !  "  added  Monsieur  Joseph. 

At  this  moment  Madame  de  la  Chanterie,  who  had  not  been 
in  the  room,  came  in. 

"Still,  you  must  allow,"  Godefroid  went  on,  addressing 
Monsieur  Joseph,  "that  society  cannot  exist  without  capital 
punishment,  and  that  these  men,  whose  heads — 

Godefroid  felt  his  mouth  suddenly  closed  by  a  strong  hand, 
and  the  Abbe  de  Veze  led  away  Madame  de  la  Chanterie,  pale 
and  half-dead. 

"What  have  you  done?"  cried  Monsieur  Joseph.  "Take 
him  away,  Alain,"  he  said,  removing  the  hand  with  which  he 
had  gagged  Godefroid ;  and  he  followed  the  Abbe  de  Veze 
into  madame's  room. 

"  Come  with  me,"  said  Alain  to  Godefroid.  "You  have 
compelled  us  to  tell  you  the  secrets  of  Madame  de  la  Chan- 
terie's  life." 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY.  77 

In  a  few  minutes  the  two  friends  were  together  in  Monsieur 
Alain's  room,  as  they  had  been  when  the  old  man  had  told 
Godefroid  his  own  history. 

"  Well  ?  "  said  Godefroid,  whose  face  sufficiently  showed  his 
despair  at  having  been  the  cause  of  what  might  be  called  a 
catastrophe  in  this  pious  household. 

"  I  am  waiting  till  Manon  shall  have  come  to  say  how  she 
is  going  on,"  replied  the  good  man  as  he  heard  the  woman's 
step  on  the  stairs. 

"Monsieur,  madame  is  better.  Monsieur  1'Abbe  managed 
to  deceive  her  as  to  what  had  been  said,"  and  Manon  shot  a 
wrathful  glance  at  Godefroid. 

"  Good  heavens  !  "  exclaimed  the  unhappy  young  man,  his 
eyes  filling  with  tears. 

"Come,  sit  down,"  said  Monsieur  Alain,  seating  himself. 
Then  he  paused  to  collect  his  thoughts. 

"  I  do  not  know,"  said  the  kind  old  man,  "  that  I  have  the 
talent  necessary  to  give  a  worthy  narrative  of  a  life  so  cruelly 
tried.  You  must  forgive  me  if  you  find  the  words  of  so  poor 
a  speaker  inadequate  to  the  magnitude  of  the  events  and  catas- 
trophes. You  must  remember  that  it  is  a  very  long  time  since 
I  was  at  school,  and  that  I  date  from  a  time  when  thoughts 
were  held  of  more  importance  than  effect — from  a  prosaic  age, 
when  we  knew  not  how  to  speak  of  things  except  by  their 
names." 

Godefroid  bowed  with  an  expression  of  assent,  in  which  his 
worthy  old  friend  could  discern  his  sincere  admiration,  and 
which  plainly  said,  "  I  am  listening." 

"As  you  have  just  perceived,  my  young  friend,  it  would  be 
impossible  for  you  to  remain  one  of  us  without  learning  some 
of  the  particulars  of  that  saintly  woman's  life.  There  are  cer- 
tain ideas,  allusions,  words,  which  are  absolutely  prohibited 
in  this  house,  since  they  inevitably  reopen  wounds,  of  which 
the  anguish  might  kill  madame  if  it  were  once  or  twice  re- 
vived  " 


78  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

"Good  heavens!"  exclaimed  Godefroid,  "what  have  I 
done?" 

"But  for  Monsieur  Joseph,  who  happily  interrupted  you 
just  as  you  were  about  to  speak  of  the  awful  instrument  of 
death,  you  would  have  annihilated  the  poor  lady.  It  is  time 
that  you  should  be  told  all ;  for  you  will  be  one  of  us,  of  that 
we  are  all  convinced. 

"  Madame  de  la  Chanterie,"  he  went  on  after  a  short  pause, 
"is  descended  from  one  of  the  first  families  of  Lower  Nor- 
mandy. Her  maiden  name  was  Mademoiselle  Barbe-Philiberte 
de  Champignelles — of  a  younger  branch  of  that  house ;  and 
she  was  intended  to  take  the  veil  unless  a  marriage  could  be 
arranged  for  her  with  the  usual  renunciations  of  property  that 
were  commonly  required  in  poor  families  of  high  rank.  A 
certain  Sieur  de  la  Chanterie,  whose  family  had  sunk  into  utter 
obscurity,  though  dating  from  the  time  of  Philippe-Auguste's 
crusade,  was  anxious  to  recover  the  rank  to  which  so  ancient 
a  name  gave  him  a  claim  in  the  province  of  Normandy.  But 
he  had  fallen  quite  from  his  high  estate,  for  he  had  made 
money — some  three  hundred  thousand  francs — by  supplying 
the  commissariat  for  the  army  at  the  time  of  the  war  with 
Hanover.  His  son,  trusting  too  much  to  this  wealth,  which 
provincial  rumor  magnified,  was  living  in  Paris  in  a  way  cal- 
culated to  cause  the  father  of  a  family  very  great  uneasiness 
and  alarm. 

"  Mademoiselle  de  Champignelles'  great  merits  became 
famous  throughout  the  district  of  le  Bessin  ;  and  the  old  man, 
whose  little  estate  of  la  Chanterie  lay  between  Caen  and 
Saint-L6,  heard  some  expressions  of  regret  that  so  accom- 
plished a  young  lady,  and  one  so  capable  of  making  a  husband 
happy,  should  end  her  days  in  a  convent.  On  his  uttering  a 
wish  to  seek  her  out,  some  hope  was  given  him  that  he  might 
obtain  the  hand  of  Mademoiselle  Philiberte  for  his  son  if  he 
were  content  to  renounce  any  marriage  portion.  He  went  to 
Bayeux,  contrived  to  have  two  or  three  meetings  with  the 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  79 

Champignelles  family,  and  was  fascinated  by  the  young  lady's 
noble  qualities. 

"At  the  age  of  sixteen,  Mademoiselle  de  Champignelles 
gave  promise  of  what  she  would  become.  She  evinced  well- 
founded  piety,  sound  good-sense,  inflexible  rectitude — one  of 
those  natures  which  will  never  veer  in  its  affections  even  if 
they  are  the  outcome  of  duty.  The  old  nobleman,  enriched 
by  his  somewhat  illicit  gains,  discerned  in  this  charming  girl 
a  wife  who  might  keep  his  son  in  order  by  the  authority  of 
virtue  and  the  ascendency  of  a  character  that  was  firm  but  not 
rigid ;  for,  as  you  have  seen,  no  one  can  be  gentler  than 
Madame  de  la  Chanterie.  Then,  no  one  could  be  more  con- 
fiding ;  even  in  the  decline  of  life  she  has  the  candor  of  inno- 
cence ;  in  her  youth  she  would  not  believe  in  evil ;  such 
distrust  as  you  may  have  seen  in  her  she  owes  to  her  misfor- 
tunes. The  old  man  pledged  himself  to  the  Champignelles 
to  give  them  a  discharge  in  full  for  the  portion  legitimately 
due  to  Mademoiselle  Philiberte  on  the  signing  of  the  marriage- 
contract ;  in  return,  the  Champignelles,  who  were  connected 
with  the  greatest  families,  promised  to  have  the  feof  of  la 
Chanterie  created  a  barony,  and  they  kept  their  word.  The 
bridegroom's  aunt,  Madame  de  Boisfrelon,  the  wife  of  the 
councilor  to  the  Parlement  who  died  in  your  rooms,  promised 
to  leave  her  fortune  to  her  nephew. 

"  When  all  these  arrangements  were  completed  between  the 
two  families,  the  father  sent  for  his  son.  This  young  man,  at 
the  time  of  his  marriage,  was  five-and-twenty,  and  already  a 
master  of  appeals ;  he  had  indulged  in  numerous  follies  with 
the  young  gentlemen  of  the  time,  living  in  their  style ;  and 
the  old  army  contractor  had  several  times  paid  his  debts  to  a 
considerable  amount.  The  poor  father,  foreseeing  further 
dissipation  on  his  son's  part,  was  only  too  glad  to  settle  a  part 
of  his  fortune  on  his  daughter-in-law;  but  he  was  so  cautious 
as  to  entail  the  estate  of  la  Chanterie  on  the  heirs  male  of  the 
marriage 


80  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

"A  precaution,"  added  Monsieur  Alain  in  a  parenthesis, 
"  which  the  Revolution  made  useless." 

"  As  handsome  as  an  angel,  and  wonderfully  skilled  in  all 
athletic  exercises,  the  young  master  of  appeals  had  immense 
powers  of  charming,"  he  went  on.  "So  Mademoiselle  de 
Champignelles,  as  you  may  easily  imagine,  fell  very  much  in 
love  with  her  husband.  The  old  man,  made  very  happy  by 
this  promising  beginning,  and  hoping  that  his  son  was  a  re- 
formed character,  sent  the  young  couple  to  Paris.  This  was 
early  in  1788.  For  nearly  a  year  they  were  perfectly  happy. 
Madame  de  la  Chanterie  was  the  object  of  all  the  little  cares,  the 
most  delicate  attentions  that  a  devoted  lover  can  lavish  on  the 
one  and  only  woman  he  loves.  Brief  as  it  was,  the  honey- 
moon, beamed  brightly  on  the  heart  of  the  noble  and  unfortu- 
nate lady. 

"  As  you  know,  in  those  days  mothers  all  nursed  their  in- 
fants themselves.  Madame  de  la  Chanterie  had  a  daughter. 
This  time,  when  a  wife  ought  to  be  the  object  of  double 
devotion  on  her  husband's  part,  was,  on  the  contrary,  the 
beginning  of  dreadful  woes.  The  master  of  appeals  was 
obliged  to  sell  everything  he  could  spare  to  pay  old  debts 
which  he  had  not  confessed,  and  more  recent  gambling  debts. 
Then,  suddenly  the  National  Assembly  dissolved  the  Supreme 
Council  and  the  Parlement,  and  abolished  all  the  great  law 
appointments  that  had  been  so  dearly  purchased.  Thus  the 
young  couple,  with  the  addition  of  their  child,  had  no 
income  to  rely  on  but  the  revenues  from  the  entailed  estate, 
and  from  the  portion  settled  on  Madame  de  la  Chanterie. 
Twenty  months  after  her  marriage  this  charming  woman,  at 
the  age  of  seventeen  and  a  half,  found  herself  reduced  to 
maintaining  herself  and  the  child  at  her  breast  by  the  work  of 
her  hands,  in  an  obscure  street  where  she  hid  herself.  She 
then  found  herself  absolutely  deserted  by  her  husband,  who 
fell  step  by  step  into  the  society  of  the  very  lowest  kind. 
Never  did  she  blame  her  husband,  never  did  she  put  him  in 


THE   SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  81 

the  least  in  the  wrong.     She  has  told  us  that  all  through  the 
worst  time  she  prayed  to  God  for  her  dear  Henri. 

"  The  rascal's  name  was  Henri,"  remarked  Monsieur  Alain. 
"  It  is  a  name  that  must  never  be  spoken  here,  any  more  than 
that  of  Henriette.  To  proceed  : 

"  Madame  de  la  Chanterie,  who  never  quitted  her  little 
room  in  the  Rue  de  la  Corderie-du-Temple  unless  to  buy  food 
or  fetch  her  work,  kept  her  head  above  water,  thanks  partly 
to  an  allowance  of  a  hundred  francs  a  month  from  her  father- 
in-law,  who  was  touched  by  so  much  virtue.  However,  the 
poor  young  wife,  foreseeing  that  this  support  might  fail  her, 
had  taken  up  the  laborious  work  of  a  staymaker,  and  worked 
for  a  famous  dressmaker.  In  fact,  ere  long  the  old  contractor 
died,  and  his  estate  was  consumed  by  his  son  under  favor  of 
the  overthrow  of  the  Monarchy. 

"The  erewhile  master  of  appeals,  now  one  of  the  most 
savage  of  all  the  presidents  of  the  revolutionary  tribunal,  had 
become  a  terror  in  Normandy,  and  could  indulge  all  his  pas- 
sions. Then,  imprisoned  in  his  turn  on  the  fall  of  Robes- 
pierre, the  hatred  of  the  department  condemned  him  to  in- 
evitable death.  Madame  de  la  Chanterie  received  a  farewell 
letter  announcing  her  husband's  fate.  She  immediately  placed 
her  little  girl  in  the  care  of  a  neighbor,  and  went  off  to  the 
town  where  the  wretch  was  in  confinement,  taking  with  her  a 
few  louis,  which  constituted  her  whole  fortune.  This  money 
enabled  her  to  get  into  the  prison.  She  succeeded  in  helping 
her  husband  to  escape,  dressing  him  in  clothes  of  her  own, 
under  circumstances  very  similar  to  those  which  not  long  after 
favored  Madame  de  la  Valette.  She  was  condemned  to  death, 
but  the  authorities  were  ashamed  to  carry  out  this  act  of  re- 
venge, and  she  was  secretly  released  with  the  connivance  of 
the  Court  over  which  her  husband  had  formerly  presided. 
She  got  back  to  Paris  on  foot  without  any  money,  sleeping 
at  farmhouses,  and  often  fed  by  charity." 

"Good  heavens  !  "  exclaimed  Godefroid. 
6 


82  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

"Wait,"  said  the  old  man,  "that  was  nothing.  In  the 
course  of  eight  years  the  poor  woman  saw  her  husband  three 
times.  The  first  time  the  gentleman  spent  twenty- four  hours 
in  his  wife's  humble  lodgings,  and  went  away  with  all  her 
money,  after  heaping  on  her  every  mark  of  affection,  and 
leading  her  to  believe  in  his  complete  reformation.  '  For  I 
could  not  resist,'  said  she,  '  a  man  for  whom  I  prayed  every 
day,  and  who  filled  my  thoughts  exclusively.'  The  second 
time  Monsieur  de  la  Chanterie  came  in  a  dying  state,  and 
from  some  horrible  disease  !  She  nursed  him,  and  saved  his 
life  j  then  she  tried  to  reclaim  him  to  decent  feeling  and  a 
seemly  life.  After  promising  everything  this  angel  begged  of 
him,  the  revolutionary  relapsed  into  hideous  debaucheries, 
and  in  fact  only  escaped  prosecution  by  the  authorities  by 
taking  refuge  in  his  wife's  rooms,  where  he  died  unmolested. 

"  Still,  all  this  was  nothing  !  "  said  Alain,  seeing  dismay 
in  Godefroid's  face. 

"No  one  in  the  world  he  had  mixed  with  had  known  that 
the  man  was  married.  Two  years  after  the  miserable  crea- 
ture's death,  she  heard  that  there  was  a  second  Madame  de  la 
Chanterie,  widowed  and  ruined  like  herself.  The  bigamous 
villain  had  found  two  such  angels  incapable  of  betraying  him. 
Toward  1803,"  the  old  man  went  on  after  a  pause,  "  Mon- 
sieur de  Boisfrelon,  Madame  de  la  Chanterie's  uncle,  having 
his  name  removed  from  the  list  of  proscribed  persons,  came 
back  to  Paris  and  paid  over  to  her  two  hundred  thousand 
francs  that  the  old  commissariat-contractor  had  placed  in  his 
keeping,  with  instructions  to  hold  it  in  trust  for  his  niece. 
He  persuaded  the  widow  to  return  to  Normandy,  where  she 
completed  her  daughter's  education,  and,  by  the  advice  of 
the  old  lawyer,  purchased  back  one  of  the  family  estates  under 
very  favorable  conditions." 

"Ah!"  sighed  Godefroid. 

"  Oh  !  all  this  was  nothing  !  "  said  Monsieur  Alain.  "  We 
have  not  yet  come  to  the  hurricane.  To  proceed.  In  1807, 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  83 

after  four  years  of  peace,  Madame  de  la  Chanterie  saw  her 
only  daughter  married  to  a  gentleman  whose  piety,  whose 
antecedents,  and  fortune  seemed  a  guarantee  from  every  point 
of  view ;  a  man  who  was  reported  to  be  the  '  pet  lamb '  of 
the  best  society  in  the  country-town  where  madame  and  her 
daughter  spent  every  winter.  Remark  :  this  society  consisted 
of  seven  or  eight  families  belonging  to  the  highest  French 
nobility — the  d'Esgrignons,  the  Troisvilles,  the  Casterans, 
the  Nouatres,  and  the  like. 

"At  the  end  of  eighteen  months  this  man  deserted  his  wife 
and  vanished  in  Paris,  having  changed  his  name.  Madame 
de  la  Chanterie  could  never  discover  the  cause  of  this  separa- 
tion till  the  lightning  flash  showed  it  in  the  midst  of  the 
storm.  Her  daughter,  whom  she  had  brought  up  with  the 
greatest  care  and  the  purest  religious  feelings,  preserved  abso- 
lute silence  on  the  subject. 

"  This  lack  of  confidence  was  a  great  shock  to  Madame  de 
la  Chanterie.  Many  times  already  she  had  detected  in  her 
daughter  certain  indications  of  the  father's  adventurous  spirit, 
strengthened  by  an  almost  manly  determination  of  character. 
The  husband  had  departed  without  let  or  hindrance, 
leaving  his  affairs  in  the  utmost  disorder.  To  this  day 
Madame  de  la  Chanterie  is  amazed  at  this  catastrophe,  which 
no  human  power  could  remedy.  All  the  persons  she  privately 
consulted  had  assured  her  before  the  marriage  that  the  young 
man's  fortune  was  clear  and  unembarrassed,  in  land  unen- 
cumbered by  mortgages,  when,  at  that  very  time,  the  estate 
had,  for  ten  years,  been  loaded  with  debt  far  beyond  its 
value.  So  everything  was  sold,  and  the  poor  young  wife, 
reduced  to  her  own  little  income,  came  back  to  live  with  her 
mother. 

"  Madame  de  la  Chanterie  subsequently  learned  that  this 
man  had  been  kept  going  by  the  most  respectable  persons  in 
the  district  for  their  own  benefit,  for  the  wretched  man  owed 
them  all  more  or  less  considerable  sums  of  money.  Indeed, 


84  THE   SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

ever  since  her  arrival  in  the  province,  Madame  de  la  Chanterie 
had  been  regarded  as  a  prey. 

"  However,  there  were  other  reasons  for  this  climax  of 
disaster,  which  you  will  understand  from  a  confidential  com- 
munication addressed  to  the  Emperor. 

"  This  man  had  long  since  succeeded  in  winning  the  good 
graces  of  the  leading  Royalists  of  the  Department  by  his 
devotion  to  the  cause  during  the  stormiest  days  of  the  Revolu- 
tion. As  one  of  Louis  XVIII. 's  most  active  emissaries,  he 
had,  since  1793,  been  mixed  up  in  every  conspiracy,  always 
withdrawing  at  the  right  moment,  and  with  so  much  dexterity 
as  to  give  rise  at  last  to  suspicions  of  his  honor.  The  King 
dismissed  him  from  service,  and  he  was  excluded  from  all 
further  scheming,  so  he  retired  to  his  estate,  already  deeply 
involved.  All  these  antecedents,  at  that  time  scarcely  known 
— for  those  who  were  initiated  into  the  secrets  of  the  Cabinet 
did  not  say  much  about  so  dangerous  a  colleague — made  him 
an  object  almost  of  worship  in  a  town  devoted  to  the  Bour- 
bons, where  the  crudest  devices  of  the  Chouans  were  regarded 
as  honest  warfare.  The  Esgrignons,  the  Casterans,  the 
Chevalier  de  Valois,  in  short,  the  aristocracy  and  the  church, 
received  the  Royalist  with  open  arms,  and  took  him  to  their 
bosom.  This  favor  was  supported  by  his  creditors'  earnest 
desire  to  be  paid. 

"  This  wretch,  a  match  for  the  deceased  la  Chanterie,  was 
able  to  keep  up  this  part  for  three  years;  he  affected  the 
greatest  piety,  and  subjugated  his  vices.  During  the  first  few 
months  of  his  married  life  he  had  some  little  influence  over 
his  wife ;  he  did  his  utmost  to  corrupt  her  by  his  doctrines, 
if  atheism  may  be  called  a  doctrine,  and  by  the  flippant  tone 
in  which  he  spoke  of  the  most  sacred  things. 

"This  backstairs  diplomatist  had,  on  his  return  to  the 
country,  formed  an  intimacy  with  a  young  man,  over  head 
and  ears  in  debt  like  himself,  but  attractive,  in  so  far  that  he 
had  as  much  courage  and  honesty  as  the  other  had  shown 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  85 

hypocrisy  and  cowardice.  This  guest  at  his  house — whose 
charm  and  character  could  not  fail  to  impress  a  young  woman, 
to  say  nothing  of  his  adventurous  career — was  a  tool  in  the 
husband's  hands  which  he  used  to  support  his  infamous  prin- 
ciples. The  daughter  never  confessed  to  her  mother  the  gulf 
into  which  circumstances  had  thrown  her — for  human  prudence 
is  no  word  for  the  caution  exercised  by  Madame  de  la  Chan- 
terie  when  seeking  a  husband  for  her  only  child.  And  this 
last  blow,  in  a  life  so  devoted,  so  guileless,  so  religious  as 
hers,  tested  as  she  had  been  by  every  kind  of  misfortune,  filled 
Madame  de  la  Chanterie  with  a  distrust  of  herself  which  isolated 
her  from  her  daughter;  all  the  more  so  because  her  daughter, 
in  compensation  for  her  ill-fortune,  insisted  on  perfect  liberty, 
overruled  her  mother,  and  was  sometimes  very  rough  with  her. 

"Thus  wounded  in  every  feeling,  cheated  alike  in  her 
devotion  and  her  love  for  her  husband — to  whom  she  had 
sacrificed  her  happiness,  her  fortune,  and  her  life,  without  a 
murmur ;  cheated  in  the  exclusively  religious  training  she  had 
given  her  daughter ;  cheated  by  the  world,  even  in  the  matter 
of  that  daughter's  marriage,  and  meeting  with  no  justice  from 
the  heart  in  which  she  had  implanted  none  but  right  feelings, 
she  turned  more  resolutely  to  God,  clinging  to  Him  whose 
hand  lay  so  heavy  on  her.  She  was  almost  a  nun  ;  she  went 
to  mass  every  morning,  carried  out  monastic  discipline,  and 
saved  in  everything  to  be  able  to  help  the  poor. 

"  Has  any  woman  ever  known  a  more  saintly  or  more 
severely  tried  life  than  this  noble  creature,  so  mild  to  the 
unfortunate,  so  brave  in  danger,  and  always  so  perfect  a 
Christian?"  said  the  worthy  man,  appealing  to  Godefroid. 
"You  know  madame,  you  know  whether  she  is  deficient  in 
sense,  judgment,  and  reflection.  She  has  all  these  qualities 
in  the  highest  degree.  Well,  and  still  all  these  misfortunes, 
which  surely  were  enough  to  qualify  any  life  as  surpassing  all 
others  in  adversity,  were  a  trifle  compared  with  what  God  had 
yet  in  store  for  this  woman.  We  will  speak  only  of  Madame 


86  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY. 

de  la  Chanterie's  daughter,"  said  Monsieur  Alain,  going  on 
with  his  narrative. 

"At  the  age  of  eighteen,  when  she  married,  Mademoiselle 
de  la  Chanterie  had  an  extremely  delicate  complexion,  rather 
dark,  with  a  brilliant  color,  a  slender  form,  and  charming 
features.  An  elegantly  formed  brow  was  crowned  by  the  most 
beautiful  black  hair,  that  matched  well  with  bright  and  lively 
hazel  eyes.  A  peculiar  prettiness  and  a  childlike  countenance 
belied  her  real  nature  and  masculine  decisiveness.  She  had 
small  hands  and  feet ;  in  all  her  person  there  was  something 
tiny  and  frail,  which  excluded  any  idea  of  strength  and  will- 
fulness. Never  having  lived  away  from  her  mother,  her  mind 
was  absolutely  innocent,  and  her  piety  remarkable. 

"This  young  lady,  like  Madame  de  la  Chanterie,  was 
fanatically  devoted  to  the  Bourbons,  and  hated  the  Revolu- 
tion ;  she  regarded  Napoleon's  empire  as  a  plague  inflicted  on 
France  by  Providence,  as  a  punishment  for  the  crimes  of  1793. 
Such  a  conformity  of  opinion  between  the  lady  and  her  son- 
in-law  was,  as  it  always  must  be  in  such  cases,  a  conclusive 
reason  in  favor  of  the  marriage,  in  which  all  the  aristocracy  of 
the  province  took  the  greatest  interest. 

"This  wretched  man's  friend  had  at  the  time  of  the  rebel- 
lion in  1799  been  the  leader  of  a  troop  of  Chouans.  It  would 
seem  that  the  baron — for  Madame  de  la  Chanterie's  son-in- 
law  was  a  baron — had  no  object  in  throwing  his  wife  and  his 
friend  together  but  that  of  extracting  money  from  them. 
Though  deeply  in  debt,  and  without  any  means  of  living,  the 
young  adventurer  lived  in  very  good  style,  and  was  able,  no 
doubt,  to  help  the  promoter  of  Royalist  conspiracies. 

"Here  you  will  need  a  few  words  of  explanation  as  to  an 
association  which  made  a  great  noise  in  its  day,"  said  Mon- 
sieur Alain,  interrupting  his  narrative.  "  I  mean  that  of  the 
raiders  known  as  the  Chauffeurs.  These  brigands  pervaded 
all  the  western  provinces  more  or  less ;  but  their  object  was 
not  so  much  pillage  as  a  revival  of  the  Royalist  opposition. 


THE   SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  87 

Advantage  was  taken  of  the  very  general  resistance  of  the 
people  to  the  law  of  conscription,  which,  as  you  know,  was 
enforced  with  many  abuses.  Between  Mortagne  and  Rennes, 
and  even  beyond,  as  far  as  to  the  Loire,  nocturnal  raids  were 
frequent,  commonly  to  the  injury  of  those  who  held  national 
lands.  These  bands  of  destroyers  were  the  terror  of  the 
country.  I  am  not  exaggerating  when  I  tell  you  that  in  some 
Departments  the  arm  of  Justice  was  practically  paralyzed. 
Those  last  thunders  of  civil  war  did  not  echo  so  far  as  you 
might  suppose,  accustomed  as  we  now  are  to  the  startling 
publicity  given  by  the  press  to  the  most  trivial  acts  of  political 
and  private  life.  The  censor  allowed  nothing  to  appear  in 
print  that  bore  on  politics,  unless  it  were  accomplished  fact, 
and  even  that  was  distorted.  If  you  will  take  the  trouble  to 
look  through  old  files  of  the  '  Moniteur '  and  other  news- 
papers, even  those  issued  in  the  western  provinces,  you  will 
find  not  a  word  concerning  the  four  or  five  great  trials  which 
brought  sixty  or  eighty  of  these  rebels  to  the  scaffold. 
'  Brigands,'  this  was  the  name  given  under  the  Revolution  to 
the  Vendeens,  the  Chouans,  and  all  who  took  up  arms  for  the 
house  of  Bourbon  ;  and  it  was  still  given  in  legal  phraseology 
under  the  Empire  to  the  Royalists  who  were  victims  to 
sporadic  conspiracies.  For  to  some  vehement  souls  the  Em- 
peror and  his  government  were  '  the  Enemy,'  and  everything 
seemed  good  that  was  adverse  to  him.  I  am  explaining  the 
position,  not  justifying  the  opinions,  and  I  will  now  go  on 
with  my  story. 

"So  now,"  he  said,  after  a  pause,  such  as  will  occur  in  a 
long  story,  "  you  must  understand  that  these  Royalists  were 
ruined  by  the  war  of  1793,  though  consumed  by  frantic  pas- 
sions ;  and  if  you  can  conceive  of  some  exceptional  natures 
consumed  also  by  such  necessities  as  those  of  Madame  de  la 
Chanterie's  son-in-law  and  his  friend  the  Chouan  leader,  you 
will  see  how  it  was  that  they  determined  to  commit,  for  their 
own  private  advantage,  acts  of  robbery  which  their  political 


88  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OP  HISTORY. 

opinions  would  justify,  against  the  Imperial  Government  for 
the  advantage  of  the  Cause. 

"  The  young  leader  set  to  work  to  fan  the  ashes  of  the 
Chouan  faction,  to  be  ready  to  act  at  an  opportune  moment. 
There  was,  soon  after,  a  terrible  crisis  in  the  Emperor's  affairs 
when  he  was  shut  up  in  the  island  of  Lobau,  and  it  seemed 
that  he  must  inevitably  succumb  to  a  simultaneous  attack  by 
England  and  by  Austria.  The  victory  of  Wagram  made  the 
internal  rebellion  all  but  abortive.  This  attempt  to  revive 
the  fires  of  civil  war  in  Brittany,  la  Vendee,  and  part  of 
Normandy  was  unfortunately  coincident  with  the  baron's 
money  difficulties;  he  had  flattered  himself  that  he  could 
contrive  a  separate  expedition,  of  which  the  profits  could  be 
applied  solely  to  redeem  his  property.  But  his  wife  and 
friend,  with  noble  feeling,  refused  to  divert  to  private  uses 
any  sums  that  might  be  snatched  at  the  sword's  point  from 
the  State  coffers;  these  were  to  be  distributed  to  the  rebel 
conscripts  and  Chouans,  and  to  purchase  weapons  and  ammu- 
nition to  arm  a  general  rising. 

"At  last,  when  after  heated  discussions  the  young  Chouan, 
supported  by  the  baroness,  positively  refused  to  retain  a  hun- 
dred thousand  francs  in  silver  crowns  which  was  to  be  seized 
from  one  of  the  Government  receivers'  offices  in  the  west  to 
provide  for  the  Royalist  forces,  the  husband  disappeared,  to 
escape  the  execution  on  his  person  of  several  writs  that  were 
out  against  him.  The  creditors  tried  to  extract  payment  from 
his  wife,  but  the  wretched  man  had  dried  up  the  spring  of 
affection  which  prompts  a  woman  to  sacrifice  herself  for  her 
husband. 

"All  this  was  kept  from  poor  Madame  de  la  Chanterie,  but 
it  was  a  trifle  in  comparison  with  the  plot  that  lay  behind  this 
merely  preliminary  explanation. 

"  It  is  too  late  this  evening,"  said  the  good  man,  looking 
at  the  clock,  "  and  there  is  too  much  still  to  tell,  to  allow  of 
my  going  on  with  the  rest  of  the  story.  My  old  friend  Bordin, 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  89 

who  was  made  famous  as  a  Royalist  by  his  share  in  the  great 
Simeuse  trial,  and  who  pleaded  in  the  case  of  the  Chauffeurs* 
of  Mortagne,  gave  me  when  I  came  here  to  live  two  docu- 
ments which,  as  he  died  not  long  after,  I  still  have  in  my  pos- 
session. You  will  there  find  the  facts  set  forth  much  more 
concisely  than  I  could  give  them.  The  details  are  so  compli- 
cated that  I  should  lose  myself  in  trying  to  state  them,  and  it 
would  take  me  more  than  two  hours,  while  in  these  papers  you 
will  find  them  summarized.  To-morrow  morning  I  will  tell 
you  what  remains  to  be  told  concerning  Madame  de  la  Chan- 
terie,  for  when  you  have  read  these  documents  you  will  be 
sufficiently  informed  for  me  to  conclude  my  tale  in  a  few 
words." 

He  placed  some  papers,  yellow  with  years,  in  Godefroid's 
hands ;  after  bidding  his  neighbor  good-night,  the  young  man 
retired  to  his  room,  and  before  he  went  to  sleep  read  the  two 
documents  here  reproduced : 

"BILL  OF  INDICTMENT. 

"  Court  of  Criminal  and  Special  Justice  for  the  Department 
of  the  Orne. 

"  The  Public  Prosecutor  to  the  Imperial  Court  of  Justice  at 
Caen,  appointed  to  carry  out  his  functions  to  the  Special 
Criminal  Court  sitting  by  the  Imperial  decree  of  September, 
1809,  in  the  town  of  Alenc.on,  sets  forth  to  the  Court  the 
following  facts,  as  proved  by  the  preliminary  proceedings,  to 
wit : 

"That  a  conspiracy  of  brigands,  hatched  for  a  long  time 
with  extraordinary  secrecy,  and  connected  with  a  scheme  for 
a  general  rising  in  the  western  departments,  has  vented  itself 
in  several  attempts  on  the  lives  and  property  of  citizens,  and 

*  Royalists  who  robbed  the  mail-coaches  conveying  government  funds, 
also  levying  tribute  on  persons  who  had  bought  the  confiscated  property 
of  emigres. 


90  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTOR  Y. 

more  especially  in  the  attack  with  robbery,  under  arms,  on  a 
vehicle  conveying,  on  the  —  of  May,  18 — ,  the  Government 
moneys  collected  at  Caen.  This  attack,  recalling  in  its  de- 
tails the  memories  of  the  civil  war  now  so  happily  at  an  end, 
showed  deep-laid  designs  of  a  degree  of  villainy  which  cannot 
be  excused  by  the  vehemence  of  passion. 

"From  its  inception  to  the  end,  the  plot  is  extremely  com- 
plicated and  the  details  numerous.  The  preliminary  examina- 
tions lasted  for  more  than  a  year,  but  the  evidence  forthcoming 
at  every  stage  of  the  crime  throws  full  light  on  the  preparations 
made,  on  its  execution,  and  results. 

"  The  first  idea  of  the  plot  was  conceived  of  by  one  Charles- 
Amedee-Louis- Joseph  Rifoe'l,  calling  himself  the  Chevalier  du 
Vissard,  born  at  le  Vissard,  a  hamlet  of  Saint-Mexme  by  Ernee, 
and  formerly  a  leader  of  the  rebels. 

"  This  man,  who  was  pardoned  by  His  Majesty  the  Emperor 
at  the  time  of  the  general  peace  and  amnesty,  and  whose 
ingratitude  to  his  sovereign  has  shown  itself  in  fresh  crimes, 
has  already  suffered  the  extreme  penalty  of  the  law  as  the 
punishment  for  his  misdeeds ;  but  it  is  necessary  here  to  refer 
to  some  of  his  actions,  as  he  had  great  influence  over  some  of 
the  accused  now  awaiting  the  verdict  of  justice,  and  he  is  con- 
cerned in  every  circumstance  of  the  case. 

"  This  dangerous  agitator,  who  bore  an  alias,  as  is  common 
with  these  rebels,  and  was  known  as  '  Pierrot,'  used  to  wander 
about  the  western  provinces  enlisting  partisans  for  a  fresh 
rebellion  ;  but  his  safest  lurking-place  was  the  Castle  of  Saint- 
Savin,  the  home  of  a  woman  named  Lechantre  and  her 
daughter  named  Bryond,  a  house  in  the  hamlet  of  Saint- 
Savin  and  in  the  district  of  Mortagne.  This  spot  is  famous 
in  the  most  horrible  annals  of  the  rebellion  of  1799.  It  was 
there  that  a  courier  was  murdered,  and  his  chaise  plundered 
by  a  band  of  brigands  under  the  command  of  a  woman,  helped 
by  the  notorious  Marche-a-Terre.  Hence  brigandage  may  be 
said  to  be  endemic  in  this  neighborhood. 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  91 

"  An  intimacy  for  which  we  seek  no  name  had  existed  for 
more  than  a  year  between  the  woman  Bryond  and  the  above- 
named  Rifoe'l. 

"  It  was  close  to  this  spot  that,  in  the  month  of  April, 
1808,  an  interview  took  place  between  Rifoe'l  and  one  Bois- 
laurier,  a  superior  leader,  known  in  the  more  serious  risings  in 
the  west  by  the  name  of  Auguste,  and  he  it  was  who  was  the 
moving  spirit  of  the  rising  now  under  the  consideration  of 
the  Court. 

"  This  obscure  point,  namely,  the  connection  of  these  two 
leaders,  is  plainly  proved  by  the  evidence  of  numerous  wit- 
nesses, and  also  stands  as  a  demonstrated  fact  by  the  sentence 
of  death  carried  out  on  Rifoe'l.  From  the  time  of  that  meeting, 
Boislaurier  and  Rifoe'l  agreed  to  act  in  concert. 

"They  communicated  to  each  other,  and  at  first  to  no  one 
else,  their  atrocious  purpose,  founded  on  His  Royal  and  Im- 
perial Majesty's  absence,  in  command,  at  the  time,  of  his 
forces  in  Spain  ;  and  then,  or  soon  thereafter,  they  must  have 
plotted  to  capture  the  State  moneys  in  transit,  as  the  base  for 
further  operations. 

"  Some  time  later,  one  Dubut  of  Caen  dispatched  a  mes- 
senger to  the  Castle  of  Saint-Savin,  namely,  one  Hiley,  known 
as  le  Laboureur,  long  known  as  a  robber  of  the  diligences; 
he  was  charged  with  information  as  to  trustworthy  accomplices. 
And  it  was  thus,  by  Hiley's  intervention,  that  the  plot  secured 
the  cooperation  from  the  first  of  one  Herbomez,  called 
General-Hardi,  a  pardoned  rebel  of  the  same  stamp  as  Rifoel, 
and,  like  him,  a  traitor  to  the  amnesty. 

"  Herbomez  and  Hiley  recruited  in  the  neighboring  villages 
seven  banditti,  whose  names  must  at  once  be  set  forth  as 
follows : 

"  i.  Jean  Cibot,  called  Pille-Miche,  one  of  the  boldest 
brigands  of  a  troop  got  together  by  Montauran  in  the  year 
VII.,  and  one  of  the  actors  in  the  robbery  and  murder  of  the 
Mortas:ne  courier. 


92  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY. 

"  2.  Francois  Lisieux,  known  as  Grand-Fils,  a  rebel-con- 
script of  the  department  of  the  Mayenne. 

"3.  Charles  Grenier,  or  Fleur-de-Genet,  a  deserter  from  the 
69th  half-brigade. 

"  4.  Gabriel  Bruce,  known  as  Gros-Jean,  one  of  the  fiercest 
Chouans  of  Fontaine's  division. 

"5.  Jacques  Horeau,  called  Stuart,  ex-lieutenant  of  that 
brigade,  one  of  Tinteniac's  adherents,  and  well  known  by 
the  share  he  took  in  the  Quiberon  expedition. 

"  6.  Marie-Anne  Cabot,  called  Lajeunesse,  formerly  hunts- 
man to  the  Sieur  Carol  of  Alencon. 

"  7.  Louis  Minard,  a  rebel  conscript. 

"These,  when  enrolled,  were  quartered  in  three  different 
hamlets  in  the  houses  of  Binet,  Melin,  and  Laraviniere,  inn 
or  tavernkeepers,  all  devoted  to  Rifoe'l. 

"The  necessary  weapons  were  at  once  provided  by  one 
Jean-Frangois  Leveille,  a  notary,  and  the  incorrigible  abettor 
of  the  brigands,  serving  as  a  go-between  for  them  with  several 
leaders  in  hiding ;  and,  in  this  town,  by  one  Felix  Courceuil, 
called  le  Confesseur,  formerly  surgeon  to  the  rebel  army  of  la 
Vendee ;  both  these  men  are  natives  of  Alencon.  Eleven 
muskets  were  concealed  in  a  house  belonging  to  Bryond  in  a 
suburb  of  Alengon ;  but  this  was  done  without  his  knowledge, 
for  he  was  at  that  time  living  in  the  country  on  his  estate 
between  Alencon  and  Mortagne. 

"  When  Bryond  left  his  wife  to  go  her  own  way  in  the  fatal 
road  she  had  set  out  on,  these  muskets,  cautiously  removed 
from  the  house,  were  carried  by  the  woman  Bryond  in  her 
own  carriage  to  the  Castle  of  Saint-Savin. 

"  It  was  then  that  the  Department  of  the  Orne  and  adja- 
cent districts  were  dismayed  by  acts  of  highway  robbery  that 
startled  the  authorities  as  much  as  the  inhabitants  of  those 
districts  which  had  so  long  enjoyed  quiet ;  and  these  raids 
prove  that  the  atrocious  foes  of  the  Government  and  the  Em- 
[NOTE. — This  is  contemporary  with  "  The  Chouans."] 


THE   SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  93 

pire  had  been  kept  informed  of  the  secret  coalition  of  1809 
by  means  of  communications  from  abroad. 

"  Leveille  the  notary,  the  woman  Bryond,  Dubut  of  Caen, 
Herbomez  of  Mayenne,  Boislaurier  of  le  Mans,  and  Rifoe'l 
were  the  ringleaders  of  the  association,  which  was  also  joined 
by  those  criminals  who  have  been  already  executed  under  the 
sentence  passed  on  them  with  Rifoe'l,  by  those  accused  under 
this  trial,  and  by  several  others  who  have  escaped  public  ven- 
geance by  flight,  or  by  the  silence  of  their  accomplices. 

"It  was  Dubut  who,  as  a  resident  near  Caen,  gave  notice 
to  Leveille  of  the  dispatch  of  the  money.  Dubut  made  several 
journeys  between  Caen  and  Mortagne,  and  Leveille  also  was 
often  on  the  roads.  It  may  here  be  noted  that,  at  the  time 
when  the  arms  were  removed,  Leveille,  who  came  to  visit 
Bruce,  Grenier,  and  Cibot  at  Melin's  house,  found  them  ar- 
ranging the  muskets  in  an  inside  shed,  and  helped  them  him- 
self in  so  doing. 

"  A  general  meeting  was  arranged  to  take  place  at  Mor- 
tagne at  the  Ecu  de  France  (Crown  of  France)  inn.  All  the 
accused  were  present  in  various  disguises.  It  was  on  this 
occasion  that  Leveille,  the  woman  Bryond,  Dubut,  Herbomez, 
Boislaurier,  and  Hiley,  the  cleverest  of  the  subordinate  con- 
spirators, of  whom  Cibot  is  the  most  daring,  secured  the  co- 
operation of  one  Vauthier,  called  Vieux-Chene,  formerly  a 
servant  to  the  notorious  Longuy,  and  now  a  stableman  at  the 
inn.  Vauthier  agreed  to  give  the  woman  Bryond  due  notice 
of  the  passing  of  the  chaise  conveying  the  Government 
moneys,  as  it  commonly  stopped  to  bait  the  horses  at  the 
inn. 

"The  opportunity  ere  long  offered  for  assembling  the  brig- 
and recruits  who  had  been  scattered  about  in  various  lodgings 
with  great  precaution,  sometimes  in  one  village  and  some- 
times in  another,  under  the  care  of  Courceuil  and  of  Leveille. 
The  assembly  was  managed  by  the  woman  Bryond,  who  af- 
forded the  brigands  a  new  hiding-place  in  the  uninhabited 


94  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

parts  of  the  Castle  of  Saint-Savin,  at  a  few  miles  from  Mor- 
tagne,  where  she  had  lived  with  her  mother  since  her  hus- 
band's departure.  The  brigands  established  themselves  there 
with  Hiley  at  their  head,  and  spent  several  days  there.  The 
woman  Bryond,  with  her  waiting-maid  Godard,  took  care  to 
prepare  with  her  own  hands  everything  needed  for  lodging 
and  feeding  these  guests.  To  this  end  she  had  trusses  of  hay 
brought  in,  and  went  to  see  the  brigands  in  the  shelter  she 
had  arranged  for  them,  going  to  and  fro  with  Leveille.  Pro- 
visions were  procured  under  the  orders  and  care  of  Courceuil, 
Rifoel  and  Boislaurier  giving  him  instructions. 

"The  principal  feat  was  decided  on  and  the  men  fully 
armed ;  the  brigands  stole  out  of  Saint-Savin  every  night ; 
pending  the  transit  of  the  Government  chest,  they  carried  out 
raids  in  the  neighborhood,  and  the  whole  country  was  in  terror 
under  their  repeated  incursions.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
the  robberies  committed  at  la  Sartiniere,  at  Vonay,  and  at  the 
chateau  of  Saint-Seny  were  the  work  of  this  band  ;  their  daring 
equaled  their  villainy,  and  they  contrived  to  terrify  their  vic- 
tims so  effectually  that  no  tales  were  told,  so  that  justice  could 
obtain  no  evidence. 

"While  levying  contributions  on  all  who  held  possession  of 
the  nationalized  land,  the  brigands  carefully  reconnoitred  the 
woods  of  Le  Chesnay,  which  they  had  chosen  to  be  the  scene 
of  their  crime. 

"  Not  far  away  is  the  village  of  Louvigny,  where  there  is  an 
inn  kept  by  the  brothers  Chaussard,  formerly  gamekeepers  on 
the  property  of  Troisville,  and  this  was  to  be  the  brigands' 
final  rendezvous.  The  two  brothers  knew  beforehand  the  part 
they  were  to  play ;  Courceuil  and  Boislaurier  had  long  before 
sounded  them,  and  revived  their  hatred  of  the  government  of 
our  august  Emperor ;  and  had  told  them  that  among  the  visitors 
who  would  drop  in  on  them  would  be  some  men  of  their  ac- 
quaintance— the  formidable  Hiley  and  the  not  less  formidable 
Cibot. 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  95 

"In  fact,  on  the  6th  the  seven  highwaymen,  under  the 
leadership  of  Hiley,  arrived  at  the  brother  Chaussards'  tavern 
and  spent  two  days  there.  On  the  8th  the  chief  led  out  his 
men,  saying  they  were  going  nine  miles  away,  and  he  desired 
the  hosts  to  provide  food,  which  was  taken  to  a  place  where 
the  roads  met,  a  little  way  from  the  village.  Hiley  came 
home  alone  at  night. 

"Two  riders — who  were  probably  the  woman  Bryond  and 
Rifoel,  for  it  is  said  that  she  accompanied  him  in  his  expedi- 
tions, on  horseback  and  dressed  as  a  man — arrived  that  evening 
and  conversed  with  Hiley.  On  the  following  day  Hiley  wrote 
to  Leveille  the  notary,  and  one  of  the  Chaussard  brothers  car- 
ried the  letter  and  brought  back  the  answer.  Two  hours  later 
Bryond  and  Rifoel  came  on  horseback  to  speak  with  Hiley. 

"  The  upshot  of  all  these  interviews  and  coming  and  going 
was  that  a  hatchet  was  indispensable  to  break  open  the  cases. 
The  notary  went  back  with  the  woman  Bryond  to  Saint-Savin, 
where  they  sought  in  vain  for  a  hatchet. 

"  Thereupon  he  returned  to  the  inn  and  met  Hiley  half-way, 
to  whom  he  was  to  explain  that  no  hatchet  was  to  be  found. 
Hiley  made  his  way  back  and  ordered  supper  at  the  inn  for 
ten  persons ;  he  then  brought  in  the  seven  brigands  all  armed. 
Hiley  made  them  pile  arms  like  soldiers.  They  all  sat  down 
and  supped  in  haste,  Hiley  ordering  a  quantity  of  food  to  be 
packed  for  them  to  take  away  with  them.  Then  he  led  the 
elder  Chaussard  aside  and  asked  him  for  a  hatchet.  The 
tavernkeeper,  much  astonished,  by  his  own  account,  refused 
to  give  him  one.  Courceuil  and  Boislaurier  presently  came 
in,  and  the  three  men  spent  the  whole  night  pacing  up  and 
down  the  room  and  discussing  their  plan.  Courceuil,  nick- 
named the  Confessor,  the  most  cunning  of  the  band,  took 
possession  of  a  hatchet,  and  at  about  two  in  the  morning  they 
all  went  out  by  different  doors. 

"  Every  minute  was  now  precious ;  the  execution  of  the 
crime  was  fixed  for  that  day.  Hiley,  Courceuil,  and  Bois- 


96  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

laurier  placed  their  men.  Hiley  with  Minard,  Cabot,  and 
Bruce,  formed  an  ambush  to  the  right  of  the  wood  of  Le 
Chesnay.  Boislaurier,  Grenier,  and  Horeau  occupied  the 
centre.  Courceuil,  Herbomez,  and  Lisieux  stood  by  the 
ravine  under  the  fringe  of  the  wood.  All  these  positions  are 
indicated  on  the  subjoined  plan  to  scale,  drawn  by  the  sur- 
veyor to  the  Government. 

"The  chaise,  meanwhile,  had  started  from  Mortagne  at 
about  one  in  the  morning,  driven  by  one  Rousseau,  who  was 
so  far  inculpated  by  circumstantial  evidence  as  to  make  it 
seem  desirable  to  arrest  him.  The  vehicle,  driving  slowly, 
would  reach  the  wood  of  Le  Chesnay  by  about  three.  It  was 
guarded  by  a  single  gendarme ;  the  men  were  to  breakfast  at 
Donnery.  There  were  three  travelers,  as  it  happened,  beside 
the  gendarme. 

"  The  driver,  who  had  been  walking  with  them  very  slowly, 
on  reaching  the  bridge  of  Le  Chesnay,  whipped  up  the  horses 
to  a  speed  and  energy  that  the  others  remarked  upon,  and 
turned  into  a  cross-road  known  as  the  Senzey  lane.  The 
chaise  was  soon  lost  to  sight ;  the  way  it  had  gone  was  known 
to  the  gendarme  and  his  companions  only  by  the  sound  of  the 
horses'  bells ;  the  men  had  to  run  to  come  up  with  it.  Then 
they  heard  a  shout :  '  Stand,  you  rascals  ! ' — and  four  shots 
were  fired. 

"The  gendarme,  who  was  not  hit,  drew  his  sword  and  ran 
on  in  the  direction  he  supposed  the  driver  to  have  taken.  He 
was  stopped  by  four  men,  who  all  fired;  his  eagerness  saved 
him,  for  he  rushed  past  to  desire  one  of  the  young  travelers 
to  run  on  and  have  the  alarm  bell  tolled  at  Le  Chesnay,  but 
two  of  the  brigands  taking  steady  aim,  advanced  toward  him  ; 
he  was  forced  to  draw  back  a  few  steps  ;  and  just  as  he  was 
about  to  turn  the  wood,  he  received  a  ball  in  the  left  armpit, 
which  broke  his  arm  ;  he  fell,  and  found  himself  completely 
disabled. 

"  The  shouting  and  shots  had  been  heard  at  Donnery.    The 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY.  97 

officer  in  command  at  this  station  hurried  up  with  one  of  his 
gendarmes;  a  running  fire  led  them  away  to  the  side  of  the 
wood  farthest  from  the  scene  of  the  robbery.  The  single 
gendarme  tried  to  intimidate  the  brigands  by  a  hue  and  cry, 
and  to  delude  them  into  the  belief  that  a  force  was  at  hand. 

"  '  Forward  ! '  he  cried.  '  First  platoon  to  the  right !  now 
we  have  them  !  Second  platoon  to  the  left ! ' 

"  The  brigands  on  their  side  shouted :  '  Draw  !  This  way, 
comrades  !  Send  up  the  men  as  fast  as  you  can  ! ' 

"  The  noise  of  firing  hindered  the  officer  from  hearing  the 
cries  of  the  wounded  gendarme,  and  helping  in  the  manoeuvre 
by  which  the  other  was  keeping  the  robbers  in  check ;  but  he 
could  hear  a  clatter  close  at  hand,  arising  from  splitting  the 
cases  open.  He  advanced  toward  that  side  ;  four  armed  men 
took  aim  at  him,  and  he  called  out,  '  Surrender,  villains  ! ' 

"  They  only  replied  :   '  Stand,  or  you  are  a  dead  man  !  ' 

"  He  rushed  forward ;  two  muskets  were  fired,  and  he  was 
hit,  one  ball  going  through  his  left  leg  and  into  his  horse's 
flank.  The  brave  man,  bleeding  profusely,  was  forced  to  re- 
tire from  the  unequal  struggle,  shouting,  but  in  vain :  '  Help 
— come  on — the  brigands  are  at  Le  Chesnay.' 

"The  robbers,  left  masters  of  the  field  by  superiority  of 
numbers,  pillaged  the  chaise  which  had  been  intentionally 
driven  into  a  ravine.  They  blindfolded  the  driver,  but  this 
was  only  a  feint.  The  chests  were  forced  open,  and  bags  of 
money  strewed  the  ground.  The  horses  were  unharnessed 
and  loaded  with  the  coin.  Three  thousand  francs'  worth  of 
copper  money  was  scornfully  left  behind  ;  three  hundred  thou- 
sand francs  were  carried  off  on  four  horses.  They  made  for 
the  village  of  Menneville  adjacent  to  the  town  of  Saint-Savin. 

"The  gang  and  their  booty  stopped  at  a  solitary  house  be- 
longing to  the  Chaussard  brothers,  inhabited  by  their  uncle, 
one  Bourget,  who  had  been  in  their  confidence  from  the  first. 
This  old  man,  helped  by  his  wife,  received  the  brigands, 
warned  them  to  be  silent,  unloaded  the  beasts,  and  then 
7 


98  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY. 

fetched  up  some  wine.  The  wife  remained  on  sentry  by  the 
castle.  The  old  man  led  the  horses  back  to  the  wood  and 
returned  them  to  the  driver ;  then  he  released  the  two  young 
men  who  had  been  gagged  as  well  as  the  accommodating 
driver.  After  refreshing  themselves  in  great  haste,  the  brig- 
ands went  on  their  way.  Courceuil,  Hiley,  and  Boislaurier 
reviewed  their  party,  and,  after  bestowing  on  each  a  trifling 
recompense,  sent  off  the  men,  each  in  a  different  direction. 

"  On  reaching  a  spot  called  le  Champ-Landry,  these  male- 
factors, obeying  the  prompting  which  so  often  leads  such 
wretches  into  blunders  and  miscalculations,  threw  their  muskets 
away  into  a  field  of  standing  corn.  The  fact  that  all  three 
did  so  at  the  same  time  is  a  crowning  proof  of  their  collusion. 
Then,  terrified  by  the  boldness  and  success  of  their  crime, 
they  separated. 

"The  robbery  having  been  committed,  with  the  additional 
features  of  violence  and  attempt  to  murder,  the  chain  of  sub- 
sidiary events  was  already  in  preparation,  and  other  actors 
were  implicated  in  receiving,  and  disposing  of  the  stolen 
property.  Rifoel,  hidden  in  Paris,  whence  he  pulled  all  the 
wires  of  the  plot,  sent  an  order  to  Leveille  to  forward  him 
immediately  fifty  thousand  francs.  Courceuil,  apt  at  the 
management  of  such  felonies,  had  sent  off  Hiley  to  inform 
Leveille  of  their  success  and  of  his  arrival  at  Mortagne,  where 
the  notary  at  once  joined  him. 

"  Vauthier,  to  whose  fidelity  they  believed  they  might  trust, 
undertook  to  find  the  Chaussards'  uncle  ;  he  went  to  the  house, 
but  was  told  by  the  old  man  that  he  must  apply  to  the  nephews, 
who  had  given  over  large  sums  to  the  woman  Bryond.  How- 
ever he  bid  Vauthier  wait  for  him  on  the  road,  and  he  there 
gave  him  a  bag  containing  twelve  hundred  francs,  which 
Vauthier  took  to  the  woman  Lechantre  for  her  daughter. 

"By  L6veille"s  advice  Courceuil  then  went  to  Bourget,who 
sent  him  direct  to  his  nephews.  The  elder  Chaussard  led 
Vauthier  to  the  wood  and  showed  him  a  tree  beneath  which 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  99 

a  bag  of  a  thousand  francs  was  found  buried.  In  short, 
Leveille,  Hiley,  and  Vauthier  went  to  and  fro  several  times, 
and  each  time  obtained  a  small  sum,  trifling  in  comparison 
with  the  whole  amount  stolen. 

"  These  moneys  were  handed  over  to  the  woman  Lechantre 
at  Mortagne ;  and,  in  obedience  to  a  letter  by  a  messenger 
from  her  daughter,  she  carried  them  to  Saint-Savin,  whither 
the  said  Bryond  had  returned. 

"  It  is  not  now  necessary  to  inquire  whether  this  woman 
Lechantre  had  any  previous  knowledge  of  the  plot.  For 
the  present  it  need  only  be  noted  that  she  had  left  Mortagne 
to  go  to  Saint-Savin  the  day  before  the  crime  was  committed 
in  order  to  fetch  away  her  daughter  ;  that  the  two  women 
met  half-way,  and  returned  to  Mortagne  ;  that,  on  the  follow- 
ing day,  the  notary,  being  informed  of  this  by  Hiley,  went 
from  Alenc,on  to  Mortagne,  and  straight  to  their  house,  where 
he  persuaded  them  to  transport  the  money,  obtained  with  so 
much  difficulty  from  the  Chaussards  and  from  Bourget,  to  a 
certain  house  in  Alen^on,  presently  to  be  mentioned  as  be- 
longing to  one  Pannier,  a  merchant  there.  The  woman  Le- 
chantre wrote  to  the  man  in  charge  at  Saint-Savin  to  come  to 
Mortagne  and  escort  her  and  her  daughter  by  cross-roads  to 
Alencon.  The  money,  amounting  to  twenty  thousand  francs 
in  all,  in  sample-sacks  and  valises,  was  packed  into  a  vehicle 
at  night,  the  girl  Godard  helping  to  dispose  of  it. 

"The  notary  had  planned  the  way  they  were  to  travel. 
They  reached  an  inn  kept  by  one  of  their  alli.es,  a  man 
named  Louis  Chargegrain,  in  the  hamlet  of  Littray.  But  in 
spite  of  the  notary's  precautions — he  riding  ahead  of  the 
chaise — some  strangers  were  present  and  saw  the  valises  and 
bags  taken  out  which  contained  the  coin. 

"But  just  as  Courceuil  and  Hiley,  disguised  as  women, 
were  consulting,  in  the  market-square  at  Alengon,  with  the 
aforenamed  Pannier — who  since  1794  had  been  the  rebel's 
treasurer,  and  who  was  devoted  to  Rifoel — as  to  the  best  means 


100  THE   SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

of  transmitting  the  required  sum  to  Rifoel,  the  terror  occa- 
sioned by  the  arrests  and  inquiries  already  made  was  so  great 
that  the  woman  Lechantre,  in  her  alarm,  set  off  at  night  from 
the  inn  where  they  were,  and  fled  with  her  daughter  by 
country  byways,  leaving  Leveille  behind,  and  took  refuge  in 
the  hiding-places  known  to  them  in  Saint-Savin  Castle.  The 
same  alarm  came  over  the  other  criminals.  Courceuil,  Bois- 
laurier,  and  his  relation  Dubut  exchanged  two  thousand  francs 
in  silver  for  gold  at  a  dealer's  and  fled  across  Brittany  to 
England. 

"  On  arriving  at  Saint-Savin,  the  mother  and  daughter 
heard  that  Bourget  was  arrested  with  the  driver  and  the  run- 
away conscripts. 

"The  magistrates,  the  police,  and  the  authorities  acted 
with  so  much  decision  that  the  gang  deemed  it  necessary  to 
protect  the  woman  Bryond  from  their  investigations,  for  all 
these  felons  were  devotedly  attached  to  her,  and  she  had  won 
the  affections  of  them  all.  So  she  was  removed  from  Saint- 
Savin,  and  hid  at  first  at  Alencon,  where  her  adherents  held 
council  and  succeeded  in  concealing  her  in  Pannier's  cellars. 

"  Hereupon  fresh  incidents  occurred.  After  the  arrest  of 
Bourget  and  his  wife,  the  Chaussards  refused  to  give  up  any 
more  money,  saying  they  had  been  betrayed.  This  unex- 
pected defection  fell  out  at  the  very  moment  when  all  the 
conspirators  were  in  the  greatest  need  of  supplies,  if  only  as  a 
means  of  escape.  Rifoel  was  thirsting  for  money.  Hiley, 
Cibot,  and  Leveille  now  began  to  doubt  the  honesty  of  the 
two  Chaussards.  This  led  to  a  fresh  complication  which 
seems  to  demand  the  intervention  of  the  law. 

"Two  gendarmes,  commissioned  to  discover  the  woman 
Bryond,  succeeded  in  getting  into  Pannier's  house,  where 
they  were  present  at  a  council  held  by  the  criminals;  but 
these  men,  false  to  the  confidence  placed  in  them,  instead  of 
arresting  Bryond,  were  enslaved  by  her  charms.  These  ras- 
cally soldiers — named  Ratel  and  Mallet — showed  the  woman 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  101 

every  form  of  interest  and  devotion,  and  offered  to  escort  her 
to  the  Chaussards'  inn  and  compel  them  to  make  restitution. 
The  woman  went  off  on  horseback,  dressed  as  a  man,  and 
accompanied  by  Ratel,  Mallet,  and  the  maidservant  Godard. 
She  set  out  at  night,  and  on  reaching  the  inn  she  and  one  of 
the  Chaussard  brothers  had  a  private  but  animated  interview. 
She  had  a  pistol,  and  was  resolved  to  blow  her  accomplice's 
brains  out  in  case  of  his  refusal ;  in  fact,  he  led  her  to  the 
wood,  and  she  brought  back  a  heavy  sack.  In  it  she  found 
copper  coin  and  twelve-sou  silver-pieces  to  the  value  of  fifteen 
hundred  francs. 

"It  was  then  suggested  that  as  many  of  the  conspirators  as 
could  be  got  together  should  take  the  Chaussards  by  surprise, 
seize  them,  and  put  them  to  torture.  Pannier,  on  hearing  of 
this  disappointment,  flew  into  a  rage  and  broke  out  in  threats; 
and  though  the  woman  Bryond  threatened  him  in  return  with 
RifoeTs  vengeance,  she  was  compelled  to  fly. 

"All  these  facts  were  confessed  by  Ratel. 

"  Mallet,  touched  by  her  position,  offered  the  woman  Bry- 
ond a  place  of  shelter  ;  they  all  set  off  together  and  spent  the 
night  in  the  Troisville  forest.  Then  Mallet  and  Ratel,  with 
Hiley  and  Cibot,  went  by  night  to  the  Chaussards'  tavern, 
but  they  found  that  the  brothers  had  left  the  place,  and  that 
the  remainder  of  the  money  had  certainly  been  removed. 

"This  was  the  last  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  conspirators 
to  recover  the  stolen  money. 

"  It  is  now  important  to  define  more  accurately  the  part 
played  by  each  of  the  criminals  implicated  in  this  affair. 

"  Dubut,  Boislaurier,  Gentil,  Herbomez,  Courceuil,  and 
Hiley  are  all  leaders,  some  in  council,  and  some  in  action. 
Boislaurier,  Dubut,  and  Courceuil,  all  three  contumacious 
deserters,  are  habitual  rebels,  stirring  up  troubles,  the  implac- 
able foes  of  Napoleon  the  Great,  of  his  victories,  his  dynasty, 
and  his  government,  of  our  new  code  of  laws  and  of  the  Im- 
perial constitution.  Herbomez  and  Hiley,  as  their  right-hand 


102  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

men,  boldly  carried  out  what  the  three  others  planned.  The 
guilt  of  the  seven  instruments  of  the  crime  is  beyond  question 
— Cibot,  Lisieux,  Grenier,  Bruce,  Horeauj  Cabot,  and  Min- 
ard.  It  is  proved  by  the  depositions  of  those  who  are  now 
in  the  hands  of  justice.  Lisieux  died  during  the  preliminary 
inquiry,  and  Bruce  has  evaded  capture. 

"  The  conduct  of  the  chaise-driver  Rousseau  marks  him  as 
an  accomplice.  The  slow  progress  on  the  highroad,  the  pace 
to  which  he  flogged  the  horses  on  reaching  the  woods,  his 
persistent  statement  that  his  head  was  muffled,  whereas,  by 
the  evidence  of  the  young  fellow-travelers,  the  leader  of  the 
brigands  had  the  handkerchief  removed  and  ordered  him  to 
recognize  the  men — all  contribute  to  afford  presumptive  evi- 
dence of  his  collusion. 

"As  to  the  woman  Bryond  and  Leveille  the  notary,  their 
complicity  was  constant  and  continuous  from  the  first.  They 
supplied  funds  and  means  for  the  crime ;  they  knew  of  it  and 
abetted  it.  Leveille  was  constantly  traveling  to  and  fro.  The 
woman  Bryond  invented  plot  upon  plot ;  she  risked  everything 
— even  her  life — to  secure  the  money.  She  lent  her  house, 
her  carriage,  and  was  concerned  in  the  plot  from  the  begin- 
ning, nor  did  she  attempt  to  persuade  the  chief  leader  to  desist 
from  it  when  she  might  have  exerted  her  evil  influence  to 
hinder  it.  She  led  the  maidservant  Godard  into  its  toils. 
Leveille'  was  so  entirely  mixed  up  in  it  that  it  was  he  who 
tried  to  procure  the  hatchet  needed  by  the  robbers. 

"The  woman  Bourget,  Vauthier,  the  Chaussards,  Pannier, 
the  woman  Lechantre,  Mallet,  and  Ratel  were  all  incriminated 
in  various  degrees,  as  also  the  innkeepers  Melin,  Binet,  Lara- 
viniere,  and  Chargegrain. 

"  Bourget  died  during  the  preliminary  inquiry,  after  making 
a  confession  which  leaves  no  doubt  as  to  the  part  taken  by 
Vauthier  and  the  woman  Bryond  ;  and  though  he  tried  to 
mitigate  the  charge  against  his  wife  and  his  nephews  the 
Chaussards,  the  reasons  for  his  reticence  are  self-evident. 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  103 

"  But  the  Chaussards  certainly  knew  that  they  were  supply- 
ing provisions  to  highway  robbers ;  they  saw  that  the  men 
were  armed,  and  were  informed  of  all  their  scheme ;  they  al- 
lowed them  to  take  the  hatchet  needed  for  breaking  open  the 
chests,  knowing  the  purpose  for  which  it  was  required.  Fi- 
nally, they  received  wittingly  the  money  obtained  by  the 
robbery,  they  hid  it,  and  in  fact  made  away  with  the  greater 
part  of  it. 

"  Pannier,  formerly  treasurer  to  the  rebel  party,  concealed 
the  woman  Bryond ;  he  is  one  of  the  most  dangerous  partici- 
pators in  the  plot,  of  which  he  was  informed  from  its  origin. 
With  regard  to  him  we  are  in  the  dark  as  to  some  circum- 
stances as  yet  unknown,  but  of  which  justice  will  take  cogni- 
zance. He  is  RifoeTs  immediate  ally  and  in  all  the  secrets  of 
the  ante-revolutionary  party  in  the  West ;  he  greatly  regretted 
the  fact  that  Rifoel  should  have  admitted  the  women  into  the 
plot  or  have  trusted  them  at  all.  He  forwarded  money  to 
Rifoel  and  received  the  stolen  coin. 

"As  to  the  two  gendarmes,  Ratel  and  Mallet,  their  conduct 
most  justly  deserves  the  utmost  rigor  of  the  law.  They  were 
traitors  to  their  duty.  One  of  them,  foreseeing  his  fate,  com- 
mitted suicide  after  making  some  important  revelations.  The 
other,  Mallet,  denied  nothing,  and  his  tacit  confession  re- 
moves all  doubt. 

"  The  woman  Lechantre,  in  spite  of  her  persistent  denials, 
was  informed  of  everything.  The  hypocrisy  of  this  woman, 
who  attempts  to  shelter  her  professed  innocence  under  the 
practice  of  assumed  devotion,  is  known  by  her  antecedents  to 
be  prompt  and  intrepid  in  extremities.  She  asserts  that  she 
was  deceived  bv  her  daughter,  and  believed  that  the  money 
in  question  belonged  to  the  man  Bryond.  The  trick  is  too 
transparent.  If  Bryond  had  had  any  money,  he  would  not 
have  fled  from  the  neighborhood  to  avoid  witnessing  his  own 
ruin.  Lechantre  considered  that  there  was  no  harm  in  the 
robbery  when  it  was  approved  of  by  her  ally  Boislaurier. 


104  THE   SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

But  how,  then,  does  she  account  for  RifoeTs  presence  at 
Saint-Savin,  her  daughter's  expeditions  and  connection  with 
the  man,  and  the  visit  of  the  brigands  who  were  waited  on  by 
the  woman  Godard  and  Bryond  ?  She  says  she  sleeps  heavily, 
and  is  in  the  habit  of  going  to  bed  at  seven  o'clock,  and  did 
not  know  what  answer  to  make  when  the  examining  judge 
observed  that  then  she  must  rise  at  daybreak,  and  could  not 
have  failed  to  discern  the  traces  of  the  plot  and  of  the  presence 
of  so  many  men,  or  to  be  uneasy  about  her  daughter's  noc- 
turnal expeditions.  To  this  she  could  only  say  that  she  was 
at  her  prayers. 

"The  woman  is  a  model  hypocrite.  In  fact,  her  absence 
on  the  day  when  the  crime  was  committed,  the  care  she  took 
to  remove  her  daughter  to  Mortagne,  her  journey  with  the 
money,  and  her  precipitate  flight  when  everything  was  dis- 
covered, the  care  with  which  she  hid  herself,  and  the  circum- 
stances of  her  arrest,  all  prove  her  complicity  from  the  incho- 
ation  of  the  plot.  Her  conduct  was  not  that  of  a  mother 
anxious  to  explain  the  danger  to  her  daughter  and  to  save  her 
from  it,  but  that  of  a  terrified  accomplice ;  and  she  was  an 
accessory,  not  out  of  foolish  affection,  but  from  party  spirit 
inspired  by  hatred,  as  is  well  known,  for  His  Imperial  Majesty's 
government.  Maternal  weakness  indeed  could  not  excuse  her, 
and  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  consent,  long  premeditated, 
is  an  evident  sign  of  her  complicity. 

"  Not  the  crime  alone,  but  its  moving  spirits,  are  now 
known.  We  see  in  it  the  monstrous  combination  of  the 
delirium  of  faction  with  a  thirst  for  rapine;  murder  prompted 
by  party  spirit,  under  which  men  take  shelter,  and  justify 
themselves  for  the  most  disgracelul  excesses.  The  orders  of 
the  leaders  was  the  signal  for  the  robbery  of  State  moneys  to 
pay  for  subsequent  violence ;  base  and  ferocious  mercenaries 
were  found  to  do  it  for  wretched  pay,  and  fully  prepared  to 
meet  resistance  with  murder ;  while  the  agitators  to  rebellion, 
not  less  guilty,  helped  in  dividing  and  concealing  the  booty. 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  105 

What  society  can  allow  such  attempts  to  go  unpunished  ?    The 
law  has  no  adequate  punishment. 

"  The  Bench  of  this  Criminal  and  Special  Court,  then,  will 
be  called  upon  to  decide  whether  the  aforenamed  Herbomez, 
Hiley,  Cibot,  Grenier,  Horeau,  Cabot,  Minard,  Melin,  Binet, 
Laraviniere,  Rousseau,  the  woman  Bryond,  Leveille,  the 
woman  Bourget,  Vauthier,  the  elder  Chaussard,  Pannier,  the 
widow  Lechantre,  and  Mallet — all  hereinbefore  described  and 
in  presence  of  the  Court — and  the  aforenamed  Boislaurier, 
Dubut,  Courceuil,  Bruce,  Chaussard  the  younger,  Chargegrain, 
and  the  girl  Godard,  being  absent  or  having  fled,  are  or  are 
not  guilty  of  the  acts  described  in  this  bill  of  indictment. 

"  Given  in  the  Court  at  Caen  this  ist  of  December,  180 — 
"  (Signed)         BARON  BOURLAC, 

"Attorney- General." 

This  legal  document,  much  shorter  and  more  peremptory 
than  such  bills  of  indictment  are  in  these  days,  so  full  of  de- 
tail and  so  complete  on  every  point,  especially  as  to  the  pre- 
vious career  of  the  accused,  excited  Godefroid  to  the  utmost. 
The  bare,  dry  style  of  an  official  pen,  setting  forth,  in  red 
ink,  as  it  were,  the  principal  facts  of  the  case,  was  enough  to 
set  his  imagination  working.  Concise,  reserved  narrative  is 
to  some  minds  a  problem  in  which  they  lose  themselves  in 
exploring  the  mysterious  deptns. 

In  the  dead  of  night,  stimulated  by  the  silence,  by  the 
darkness,  by  the  dreadful  connection  hinted  at  by  Monsieur 
Alain  of  this  document  with  Madame  de  la  Chanterie,  Gode- 
froid concentrated  all  his  intelligence  on  the  consideration  of 
this  terrible  affair. 

The  name  of  Lechantre  was  evidently  the  first  name  of  the 
la  Chanterie  family,  whose  aristocratic  titular  name  had  of 
course  been  curtailed  under  the  Republic  and  the  Empire. 

His  fancy  painted  the  scenery  where  the  drama  was  played, 
and  the  figures  of  the  accomplices  rose  before  him.  Imagina- 


106  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

tion  showed  him,  not  indeed  "  the  aforenamed  Rifoel,"  but 
the  Chevalier  du  Vissard,  a  youth  resembling  Walter  Scott's 
Fergus — in  short,  a  French  edition  of  the  Jacobite.  He 
worked  out  a  romance  on  the  passion  of  a  young  girl  grossly 
betrayed  by  her  husband's  infamy — a  tragedy  then  very  fash- 
ionable— and  in  love  with  a  young  leader  rebelling  against 
the  Emperor ;  rushing  headlong,  like  Diana  Vernon,  into  the 
toils  of  a  conspiracy,  fired  with  enthusiasm,  and  then,  having 
started  on  the  perilous  descent,  unable  to  check  her  wild 
career.  Had  it  ended  on  the  scaffold  ? 

A  whole  world  seemed  to  rise  before  Godefroid.  He  was 
wandering  through  the  groves  of  Normandy;  he  could  see 
the  Breton  gentleman  and  Madame  Bryond  in  the  copse  ;  he 
dwelt  in  the  old  Castle  of  Saint-Savin ;  he  pictured  the  win- 
ning over  of  so  many  conspirators — the  notary,  the  merchant, 
and  the  bold  Chouan  leaders.  He  could  understand  the 
almost  unanimous  adhesion  of  a  district  where  the  memory 
was  still  fresh  of  the  famous  Marche-a-Terre,  of  the  Comtes 
de  Bauvan  and  de  Longuy,  of  the  massacre  at  la  Vivetiere, 
and  of  the  death  of  the  Marquis  de  Montauran,  of  whose  ex- 
ploits he  had  heard  from  Madame  de  la  Chanterie. 

This  vision,  as  it  were,  of  men  and  things  and  places,  was 
but  brief.  As  he  realized  the  fact  that  this  story  was  that  of 
the  noble  and  pious  old  lady  whose  virtues  affected  him  to  the 
point'  of  a  complete  metamorphosis,  Godefroid,  with  a  thrill 
of  awe,  took  up  the  second  document  given  to  him  by  Mon- 
sieur Alain,  which  bore  the  title : 

"AN  APPEAL  ON  BEHALF  OF  MADAME  HENRIETTE  BRYOND 

DES  TOURS-MINIERES,  ntc  LECHANTRE  DE  LA  CHANTERIE." 

"  That  settles  it,"  thought  Godefroid. 
The  paper  ran  as  follows : 

"  We  are  condemned  and  guilty ;  but  if  ever  the  sovereign 


THE   SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  107 

had  cause  to  exercise  his  prerogative  of  mercy,  would  it  not 
be  under  the  circumstances  herein  set  forth  ? 

"The  culprit  is  a  young  woman,  who  says  she  is  about  to 
become  a  mother,  and  is  condemned  to  death. 

"  On  the  threshold  of  the  prison,  and  in  view  of  the  scaffold, 
this  woman  will  tell  the  truth.  That  statement  will  be  in  her 
favor,  and  to  that  she  looks  for  pardon. 

"  The  case,  tried  in  the  Criminal  Court  of  Alencon,  pre- 
sents some  obscure  features,  as  do  all  cases  where  several 
accused  persons  have  combined  in  a  plot  inspired  by  party 
feeling. 

"  His  Imperial  and  Kingly  Majesty's  Privy  Council  are 
now  fully  informed  as  to  the  identity  of  a  mysterious  person- 
age, known  as  '  le  Marchand,'  whose  presence  in  the  depart- 
ment of  the  Orne  was  not  disputed  by  the  public  authorities 
in  the  course  of  the  trial,  though  the  pleader  for  the  Crown 
did  not  think  it  advisable  to  produce  him  in  Court,  and  the 
defendants  had  no  right  to  call  him,  nor,  indeed,  power  to 
produce  him. 

"This  man,  as  is  well  known  to  the  Bench,  to  the  local 
authorities,  to  the  Paris  police,  and  to  the  Imperial  and  Royal 
Council,  is  Bernard-Polydor  Bryond  des  Tours-Minieres,  who, 
since  1794,  has  been  in  correspondence  with  the  Comte  de 
Lille;  he  is  known  abroad  as  the  Baron  des  Tours-Minieres, 
and  in  the  records  of  the  Paris  police  as  Contenson. 

"  He  is  a  very  exceptional  man,  whose  youth  and  rank  were 
stained  by  unremitting  vice,  such  utter  immorality  and  such 
criminal  excesses,  that  so  infamous  a  life  would  inevitably 
have  ended  on  the  scaffold  but  for  the  skill  with  which  he 
played  a  double  part  under  shelter  of  his  two  names.  Still, 
as  he  is  more  and  more  the  slave  of  his  passions  and  insatiable 
necessities,  he  will  at  last  fall  below  infamy,  and  find  himself 
in  the  lowest  depths,  in  spite  of  indisputable  gifts  and  an 
extraordinary  mind. 

"When  the  Comte  de  Lille's  better  judgment  led  to  his 


108  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

forbidding  Bryond  to  draw  money  from  abroad,  the  man  tried 
to  get  out  of  the  blood-stained  field  on  to  which  his  necessities 
had  led  him.  Was  it  that  this  career  no  longer  paid  him 
well  enough  ?  Or  was  it  remorse  or  shame  that  led  the  man 
back  to  the  district  where  his  estates,  loaded  with  debt  when 
he  went  away,  could  have  but  little  to  yield  even  to  his  skill  ? 
This  it  is  impossible  to  believe.  It  seems  more  probable  that 
he  had  some  mission  to  fulfill  in  those  departments  where 
some  sparks  were  still  lingering  of  the  civil  broils  and  covert 
rebellions. 

"  When  wandering  through  the  provinces,  where  his  per- 
fidious adhesion  to  the  schemes  of  the  English  and  of  the 
Comte  de  Lille  gained  him  the  confidence  of  certain  families 
still  attached  to  the  party  that  the  genius  of  our  immortal 
Emperor  had  reduced  to  silence,  he  met  one  of  the  former 
leaders  of  the  Rebellion — a  man  with  whom  he  had  had  deal- 
ings as  an  envoy  from  abroad  at  the  time  of  the  Quiberon 
expedition,  during  the  last  rising  in  the  year  VII.  He  en- 
couraged the  hopes  of  this  agitator,  who  has  since  paid  the 
penalty  of  his  treasonable  plots  on  the  scaffold.  At  that  time, 
then,  Bryond  was  able  to  learn  all  the  secrets  of  the  incorrigi- 
ble faction  who  misprize  the  glory  of  His  Majesty  the  Emperor 
Napoleon  I.,  and  the  true  interests  of  the  country  as  repre- 
sented by  his  sacred  person. 

"At  the  age  of  five-and-thirty,  this  man,  who  affected  the 
deepest  piety,  who  professed  unbounded  devotion  to  the  in- 
terests of  the  Comte  de  Lille,  and  perfect  adoration  for  the 
rebels  of  the  West  who  perished  in  the  struggle,  who  skillfully 
disguised  the  ravages  of  a  youth  of  debauchery,  and  whose 
personal  appearance  was  in  his  favor,  came,  under  the  protec- 
tion of  his  creditors,  who  told  no  tales,  and  of  the  most  extra- 
ordinary good-nature  on  the  part  of  all  the  ci-devants  of  the 
district,  to  be  introduced  with  all  these  claims  on  her  regard 
to  the  woman  Lechantre,  who  was  supposed  to  have  a  very  fine 
fortune.  The  scheme  in  view  was  to  secure  a  marriage  be- 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  109 

tween  Madame  Lechantre's  only  daughter,   Henriette,   and 
this  protege  of  the  Royalist  party. 

"Priests,  ex-nobles,  and  creditors,  all  from  different  mo- 
tives, conspired  to  promote  the  marriage  between  Bernard 
Bryond  and  Henriette  Lechantre. 

"  The  good  judgment  of  the  notary  who  took  charge  of 
Madame  Lechantre's  affairs,  and  his  shrewd  suspicions,  led 
perhaps  to  the  poor  girl's  undoing.  For  Monsieur  Chesnel, 
a  notary  at  Alencon,  settled  the  lands  of  Saint-Savin,  the 
bride's  sole  estate,  on  her  and  her  children,  reserving  a  small 
charge  on  it  and  the  right  of  residence  to  the  mother  for  life. 

"  Bryond's  creditors,  who,  judging  from  her  methodical 
and  economical  style  of  living,  had  supposed  that  Madame 
Lechantre  must  have  saved  large  sums,  were  disappointed  in 
their  hopes,  and,  believing  that  she  must  be  avaricious,  they 
sued  Bryond,  and  this  led  to  a  revelation  of  his  impecuniosity 
and  difficulties. 

"Then  the  husband  and  wife  quarreled  violently,  and  the 
young  woman  came  to  full  knowledge  of  the  dissipated  habits, 
the  atheistical  opinions  both  in  religion  and  in  politics,  nay, 
I  may  say,  the  utter  infamy,  of  the  man  to  whom  fate  had 
irrevocably  bound  her.  Then  Bryond,  being  obliged  to  let 
his  wife  into  the  secret  of  the  atrocious  plots  against  the  Im- 
perial Government,  offered  an  asylum  under  his  roof  to  Rifoel 
du  Vissard. 

"RifoeTs  character — adventurous,  brave,  and  lavish — had 
an  extraordinary  charm  for  all  who  came  under  his  influence ; 
of  this  there  is  abundant  proof  in  the  cases  tried  in  no  less 
than  three  special  criminal  courts. 

"  The  irresistible  influence,  in  fact  the  absolute  power,  he 
acquired  over  a  young  woman  who  found  herself  at  the  bottom 
of  a  gulf,  is  only  too  evident  in  the  catastrophe  of  which  the 
horror  brings  her  as  a  suppliant  to  the  foot  of  the  throne. 
And  His  Imperial  and  Kingly  Majesty's  Council  will  have  no 
difficulty  in  verifying  the  infamous  collusion  of  Bryond,  who, 


110  THE   SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

far  from  doing  his  duty  as  the  guide  and  adviser  of  the  girl 
intrusted  to  his  care  by  the  mother  he  had  deceived,  condoned 
and  encouraged  the  intimacy  between  his  wife  Henriette  and 
the  rebel  leader. 

"This  was  the  plan  imagined  by  this  detestable  man,  who 
makes  it  his  glory  that  he  respects  nothing,  and  that  he  never 
considers  any  end  but  the  gratification  of  his  passions,  while 
he  regards  every  sentiment  based  on  social  or  religious  mo- 
rality as  a  mere  vulgar  prejudice.  And  it  may  here  be  re- 
marked that  such  scheming  is  habitual  to  a  man  who  has  been 
playing  a  double  part  ever  since  1794,  who  for  eight  years  has 
deceived  the  Comte  de  Lille  and  his  adherents,  probably  de- 
ceiving at  the  same  time  the  superior  police  of  the  Empire — 
for  such  men  are  always  ready  to  serve  the  highest  bidder. 

"Bryond,  then,  was  urging  Rifoel  to  commit  a  crime;  he 
it  was  who  insisted  on  an  armed  attack  and  highway  robbery 
of  the  State  treasure  in  transit,  and  on  heavy  contributions  to 
be  extorted  from  the  purchasers  of  the  national  land,  by 
means  of  atrocious  tortures  which  he  invented,  and  which 
carried  terror  into  five  Departments.  He  demanded  no  less 
than  three  hundred  thousand  francs  to  pay  off  the  mortgages 
on  his  property. 

"In  the  event  of  any  objection  on  the  part  of  Rifoel  or 
Madame  Bryond,  he  intended  to  revenge  himself  for  the  con- 
tempt he  had  inspired  in  his  wife's  upright  mind  by  handing 
them  both  over  to  be  dealt  with  by  the  law  as  soon  as  they 
should  commit  some  capital  crime. 

"As  soon  as  he  perceived  that  party  spirit  was  a  stronger 
motive  than  self-interest  in  these  two  whom  he  had  thus 
thrown  together,  he  disappeared ;  he  came  to  Paris,  armed 
with  ample  information  as  to  the  state  of  affairs  in  the  western 
departments. 

"  The  Chaussard  brothers  and  Vauthier  were,  it  is  well 
known,  in  constant  correspondence  with  Bryond. 

"As  soon  as  the  robbery  on  the  chests  from  Caen  was  ac- 


THE    SEAMY  SIDE   OF  fflSTOR  Y.  Ill 

complished,  Bryond,  assuming  the  name  of  le  Marchand, 
opened  secret  communications  with  the  prefect  and  the  magis- 
trates. What  was  the  consequence  ?  No  conspiracy  of  equal 
extent,  and  in  which  so  many  persons  in  such  different  grades 
of  the  social  scale  were  involved,  has  ever  been  so  immedi- 
ately divulged  to  justice  as  this,  of  which  the  first  attempt  was 
the  robbery  of  the  treasure  from  Caen.  Within  six  days  of  the 
crime,  all  the  guilty  parties  had  been  watched  and  followed 
with  a  certainty  that  betrays  perfect  knowledge  of  the  persons 
in  question,  and  of  their  plans.  The  arrest,  trial,  and  execu- 
tion of  Rifoel  and  his  companions  are  a  sufficient  proof,  and 
mentioned  here  only  to  demonstrate  our  knowledge  of  this 
fact,  of  which  the  Supreme  Council  knows  every  particular. 

"  If  ever  a  condemned  criminal  might  hope  for  the  clem- 
ency of  the  sovereign,  may  not  Henriette  Lechantre? 

"  Carried  away  by  a  passion  and  by  rebellious  principles 
imbibed  with  her  mother's  milk,  she  is,  no  doubt,  unpardon- 
able in  the  eye  of  the  law ;  but,  in  the  sight  of  our  most  mag- 
nanimous Emperor,  may  not  the  most  shameless  betrayal  on 
one  hand,  and  the  most  vehement  enthusiasm  on  the  other, 
plead  her  cause  ? 

"  The  greatest  of  Generals,  the  immortal  genius  who  par- 
doned the  Prince  of  Hatzfeld,  and  who,  like  God  Himself, 
can  divine  the  arguments  suggested  by  a  blind  passion,  may, 
perhaps,  vouchsafe  to  consider  the  temptations  invincible  in 
the  young,  which  may  palliate  her  crime,  great  as  it  is. 

"Twenty-two  heads  have  already  fallen  under  the  sword 
of  justice  and  the  sentence  of  the  three  courts.  One  alone 
remains — that  of  a  young  woman  of  twenty,  not  yet  of  age. 
Will  not  the  Emperor  Napoleon  the  Great  grant  her  time  for 
repentance?  Is  not  that  a  tribute  to  the  grace  of  God? 

"For  Henriette  Lechantre,  wife  of  Bryond  des  Tours- 
Minieres,  BORDIN, 

"  Retained  for  the  defense,  Advocate  in  the  Lower 
Court  of  the  Department  of  the  Seine." 


112  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY, 

This  terrible  tragedy  haunted  the  little  sleep  Godefroid  was 
able  to  get.  He  dreamed  of  decapitation,  as  the  physician 
Guillotin  perfected  it  with  philanthropic  intentions.  Through 
the  hot  vapors  of  a  nightmare  he  discerned  a  beautiful  young 
woman,  full  of  enthusiasm,  undergoing  the  last  preparations, 
drawn  in  a  cart,  and  mounting  the  scaffold  with  a  cry  of 
"Long  live  the  King!  " 

Godefroid  was  goaded  by  curiosity.  He  rose  at  daybreak, 
dressed,  and  paced  his  room,  till  at  length  he  posted  himself 
at  the  window,  and  mechanically  stared  at  the  sky,  recon- 
structing the  drama,  as  a  modern  romancer  might,  in  several 
volumes.  And  always  against  the  murky  background  of 
Chouans,  of  country-folk,  of  provincial  gentlemen,  of  rebel 
leaders,  police  agents,  lawyers  and  spies,  he  saw  the  radiant 
figures  of  the  mother  and  daughter ;  of  the  daughter  deceiving 
her  mother,  the  victim  of  a  wretch,  and  of  her  mad  passion 
for  one  of  those  daring  adventurers  who  were  afterward 
regarded  as  heroes — a  man  who,  to  Godefroid's  imagination, 
had  points  of  resemblance  to  Georges  Cadoudal  and  Charette, 
and  the  giants  of  the  struggle  between  the  Republic  and  the 
Monarchy. 

As  soon  as  Godefroid  heard  old  Alain  stirring,  he  went  to 
his  room  ;  but,  on  looking  in  through  the  half-opened  door, 
he  shut  it  again,  *and  withdrew.  The  old  man,  kneeling  on 
his  prie-Dieu,  was  saying  his  morning  prayers.  The  sight  ot 
that  white  head  bent  in  an  attitude  of  humble  piety  recalled 
Godefroid  to  a  sense  of  duty,  and  he  prayed,  too,  with  fervency. 

"I  was  expecting  you,"  said  the  good  man  when,  at  the 
end  of  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  Godefroid  entered  his  room.  "  I 
anticipated  your  impatience,  and  rose  earlier  than  usual." 

"Madame  Henriette? "  Godefroid  began,  with  evi- 
dent agitation. 

"Was  madame's  daughter,"  replied  Alain,  interrupting 
him.  "  Madame's  name  is  Lechantre  de  la  Chanterie. 
Under  the  Empire  old  titles  were  not  recognized,  nor  the 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY.  113 

names  added  to  the  patronymic  or  first  surname.  Thus  the 
Baronne  des  Tours-Minieres  was  '  the  woman  Bryond ; '  the 
Marquis  d'Esgrignon  was  called  Carol — Citizen  Carol,  and 
afterward  the  Sieur  Carol;  the  Troisvilles  were  the  Sieurs 
Guibelin." 

"  But  what  was  the  end  ?     Did  the  Emperor  pardon  her?  " 

"No,  alas!"  said  Alain.  "The  unhappy  little  woman 
perished  on  the  scaffold  at  the  age  of  twenty-one.  After 
reading  Bordin's  petition,  the  Emperor  spoke  to  the  Supreme 
Judge  much  to  this  effect : 

"  '  Why  make  an  example  of  a  spy?  A  secret  agent  ceases 
to  be  a  man,  and  ought  to  have  none  of  a  man's  feelings;  he 
is  but  a  wheel  in  the  machine.  Bryond  did  his  duty.  If  our 
instruments  of  that  kind  were  not  what  they  are — steel  bars,  in- 
telligent only  in  behalf  of  the  Government  they  serve — govern- 
ment would  be  impossible.  The  sentences  of  Special  Criminal 
Courts  must  be  carried  out,  or  my  magistrates  would  lose  all 
confidence  in  themselves  and  in  me.  And,  beside,  the  men 
who  fought  for  these  people  are  executed,  and  they  were  less 
guilty  than  their  leaders.  The  women  of  the  western  pro- 
vinces must  be  taught  not  to  meddle  in  conspiracies.  It  is 
because  the  victim  of  the  sentence  is  a  woman  that  the  law 
must  take  its  course.  No  excuse  is  available  as  against  the 
interests  of  authority.' 

"This  was  the  substance  of  what  the  Supreme  Judge  was 
so  obliging  as  to  repeat  to  Bordin  after  his  interview  with  the 
Emperor.  To  re-establish  tranquillity  in  the  west,  which  was 
full  of  refractory  conscripts,  Napoleon  thought  it  needful  to 
produce  a  real  'terror.'  The  Supreme  Judge,  in  fact,  advised 
the  lawyer  to  trouble  himself  no  further  about  his  clients." 

"And  the  lady?"  said  Godefroid. 

"  Madame  de  la  Chanterie  was  condemned  to  twenty-two 
years'  imprisonment,"  replied  Alain.  "  She  had  already  been 
transferred  to  Bicgtre,  near  Rouen,  to  undergo  her  sentence, 
and  nothing  could  be  thought  of  till  her  Henriette  was  safe; 


114  THE   SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY. 

for  after  these  dreadful  scenes,  she  was  so  wrapped  up  in  her 
daughter  that,  but  for  Bordin's  promise  to  petition  for  the 
mitigation  of  the  sentence  of  death,  it  was  thought  that  mad- 
ame  would  not  have  survived  her  condemnation.  So  they 
deceived  the  poor  mother.  She  saw  her  daughter  after  the 
execution  of  the  men  who  had  been  sentenced  to  death,  but 
did  not  know  that  the  respite  was  granted  in  consequence  of  a 
false  declaration  that  her  daughter  was  expecting  her  confine- 
ment." 

"Ah,  now  I  understand  everything !  "  cried  Godefroid. 

"  No,  my  dear  boy.  There  are  some  things  which  cannot 
be  guessed.  For  a  long  time  after  that,  madame  believed  that 
her  daughter  was  alive." 

"How  is  that?" 

"  When  Madame  des  Tours-Mini£res  heard  through  Bordin 
that  her  appeal  was  rejected,  the  brave  little  woman  had 
enough  strength  of  mind  to  write  a  score  of  letters  dated  for 
several  months  after  her  execution  to  make  her  mother  believe 
that  she  was  still  alive,  but  gradually  suffering  more  and  more 
from  an  imaginary  malady,  and  it  would  end  in  death.  These 
letters  were  spread  over  a  period  of  two  years.  Thus  Madame 
de  la  Chanterie  was  prepared  for  her  daughter's  death,  but  for 
a  natural  death  ;  she  did  not  hear  of  her  execution  till  1814. 

"  For  two  years  she  was  kept  in  the  common  prison  with 
the  most  infamous  creatures  of  her  sex,  wearing  the  prison 
dress ;  then,  thanks  to  the  efforts  of  the  Champignelles  and 
the  Beause"ants,  after  the  second  year  she  was  placed  in  a  pri- 
vate cell,  where  she  lived  like  a  cloistered  nun." 

"And  the  others?" 

"  The  notary  LeVeiHe",  Herbomez,  Hiley,  Cibot,  Grenier, 
Horeau.  Cabot,  Minard,  and  Mallet  were  condemned  to  death, 
and  executed  the  same  day ;  Pannier,  with  Chaussard  and 
Vauthier,  was  sentenced  to  twenty  years'  penal  servitude; 
they  were  branded  and  sent  to  the  hulks ;  but  the  Emperor 
pardoned  Chaussard  and  Vauthier.  Melin,  Laraviniere,  and 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY.  115 

Binet  had  five  years'  imprisonment.  The  woman  Bourget 
was  imprisoned  for  twenty-two  years.  Chargegrain  and  Rous- 
seau were  acquitted.  Those  who  had  gotten  away  were  all 
sentenced  to  death,  with  the  exception  of  the  maidservant 
Godard,  who,  as  you  will  have  guessed,  is  none  other  than 
our  good  Manon." 

"  Manon  !  "  exclaimed  Godefroid  in  amazement. 

"Oh,  you  do  not  yet  know  Manon,"  replied  the  worthy 
man.  "That  devoted  soul,  condemned  to  twenty-two  years' 
imprisonment,  had  given  herself  up  to  justice  that  she  might 
be  with  Madame  de  la  Chanterie  in  prison.  Our  beloved 
vicar  is  the  priest  from  Mortagne  who  gave  the  last  sacrament 
to  Madame  des  Tours-Minieres,  who  had  the  fortitude  to 
escort  her  to  the  scaffold,  and  to  whom  she  gave  her  last 
farewell  kiss.  The  same  brave  and  exalted  priest  had  attended 
the  Chevalier  du  Vissard.  So  our  dear  Abbe  de  Veze  learned 
all  the  secrets  of  the  conspirators." 

"  I  see  now  when  his  hair  turned  white,"  said  Godefroid. 

"Alas!"  said  Alain.  "He  received  from  Amedee  du 
Vissard  a  miniature  of  Madame  des  Tours-Minieres,  the  only 
likeness  of  her  that  exists;  and  the  abbe  has  been  a  sacred 
personage  to  Madame  de  la  Chanterie  ever  since  the  day  when 
she  was  restored  triumphant  to  social  life." 

"How  was  that?"  asked  Godefroid  in  surprise. 

"Well,  on  the  restoration  of  Louis  XVIII.  in  1814,  Bois- 
laurier,  who  was  the  younger  brother  of  Monsieur  de  Bois- 
frelon,  was  still  under  the  King's  orders  to  organize  a  rising  in 
the  west — first  in  1809,  and  afterward  in  1812.  Their  name 
is  Dubut;  the  Dubut  of  Caen  was  related  to  them.  There 
were  three  brothers:  Dubut  de  Boisfranc,  president  of  the 
court  of  subsidies;  Dubut  de  Boisfrelon,  councilor-at-law ; 
and  Dubut-Boislaurier,  a  captain  of  dragoons.  Their  father 
had  given  each  the  name  of  one  of  his  three  several  estates  to 
give  them  a  title  and  status  (savonnette  a  la  vilain  [wash-ball 
for  the  base-born]  as  it  was  called),  for  their  grandfather  was  a 


116  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

linen  merchant.  Dubut  of  Caen,  who  succeeded  in  escaping, 
was  one  of  the  branch  who  had  stuck  to  trade ;  but  he  hoped,  by 
devoting  himself  to  the  Royal  cause,  to  be  allowed  to  succeed 
to  Monsieur  de  Boisfranc's  title.  And  in  fact  Louis  XVIII. 
gratified  the  wish  of  his  faithful  adherent,  who,  in  1815,  was 
made  grand  provost,  and  subsequently  became  a  public  prose- 
cutor under  the  name  of  Boisfranc ;  he  was  president  of  one 
of  the  higher  courts  when  he  died.  The  Marquis  du  Vissard, 
the  unhappy  chevalier's  elder  brother,  created  peer  of  France, 
and  loaded  with  honors  by  the  King,  was  made  lieutenant 
of  the  Maison  Rouge,  and  when  that  was  abolished  became 
prefect.  Monsieur  d'Herbomez  had  a  brother  who  was  made 
a  count  and  receiver-general.  The  unfortunate  banker  Pan- 
nier died  on  the  hulks  of  a  broken  heart.  Boislaurier  died 
childless,  a  lieutenant-general  and  governor  of  one  of  the 
royal  residences. 

"  Madame  de  la  Chanterie  was  presented  to  his  majesty  by 
Monsieur  de  Champignelles,  Monsieur  de  Beauseant,  the  Due 
de  Verneuil,  and  the  keeper  of  the  seals.  '  You  have  suffered 
much  for  me,  Madame  la  Baronne,'  said  the  King;  'you 
have  every  claim  on  my  favor  and  gratitude.' 

"  *  Sire,'  she  replied,  '  your  majesty  has  so  much  to  do  in 
comforting  the  sufferers,  that  I  will  not  add  the  burden  of  an 
inconsolable  sorrow.  To  live  forgotten,  to  mourn  for  my 
daughter,  and  do  some  good — that  is  all  I  have  to  live  for. 
If  anything  could  mitigate  my  grief,  it  would  be  the  gracious- 
ness  of  my  sovereign,  and  the  happiness  of  seeing  that  Provi- 
dence did  not  suffer  so  much  devoted  service  to  be  wasted.'  " 

"And  what  did  the  King  do?  "  asked  Godefroid. 

"  He  restored  to  Madame  de  la  Chanterie  two  hundred 
thousand  francs  in  money,"  said  the  good  man,  "for  the 
estate  of  Saint-Savin  had  been  sold  to  make  good  the  loss  to 
the  treasury.  The  letters  of  pardon  granted  to  Madame  la 
Baronne  and  her  woman  express  the  sovereign's  regret  for  all 
they  had  endured  in  his  service,  while  acknowledging  that  the 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  117 

zeal  of  his  adherents  had  carried  them  too  far  in  action;  but 
the  thing  that  will  seem  to  you  most  horrible  of  all  is,  that 
throughout  his  reign  Bryond  was  still  the  agent  of  his  secret 
police." 

"  Oli,  what  things  kings  can  do  !  "  cried  Godefroid.  "  And 
is  the  wretch  still  living?  " 

"  No.  The  scoundrel,  who  at  any  rate  concealed  his  name, 
calling  himself  Contenson,  died  at  the  end  of  1829,  or  early 
in  1830.  He  fell  from  a  roof  into  the  street  when  in  pursuit 
of  a  criminal.  Louis  XVIII.  was  of  the  same  mind  as  Napo- 
leon as  regards  police  agents. 

"Madame  de  la  Chanterie,  a  perfect  saint,  prays  for  this 
monster's  soul,  and  has  two  masses  said  for  him  every  year. 

"  Though  her  defense  was  undertaken  by  one  of  the  famous 
pleaders  of  the  day,  the  father  of  one  of  our  great  orators, 
Madame  de  la  Chanterie,  who  knew  nothing  of  her  daughter's 
risks  till  the  moment  when  the  money  was  brought  in — and 
even  then  only  because  Boislaurier,  who  was  related  to  her, 
told  her  the  facts — could  never  establish  her  innocence.  The 
President  du  Ronceret,  and  Blondet,  vice-president  of  the 
court  at  Alencon,  vainly  tried  to  clear  the  poor  lady;  the 
influence  of  the  notorious  Mergi,  the  councilor  to  the  supreme 
court  under  the  Empire,  who  presided  over  these  trials — a 
man  fanatically  devoted  to  the  church  and  throne,  who  after- 
ward, as  public  prosecutor,  brought  many  a  Bonapartist  head 
under  the  axe — was  so  great  at  this  time  over  his  two  col- 
leagues that  he  secured  the  condemnation  of  the  unhappy 
Baronne  de  la  Chanterie.  Bourlac  and  Mergi  argued  the 
case  with  incredible  virulence.  The  president  always  spoke 
of  the  Baronne  des  Tours-Minieres  as  the  woman  Bryond, 
and  of  madame  as  the  woman  Lechantre.  The  names  of  all 
the  accused  were  reduced  to  the  barest  Republican  forms,  and 
curtailed  of  all  titles. 

"There  were  some  extraordinary  features  of  the  trial,  and 
I  cannot  recall  them  all ;  but  I  remember  one  stroke  of  auda- 


118  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY. 

city,  which  may  show  you  what  manner  of  men  these  Chouans 
were.  The  crowd  that  pressed  to  hear  the  trials  wa?  beyond 
anything  your  fancy  can  conceive  of;  it  filled  the  corridors, 
and  the  square  outside  was  thronged  as  if  on  the  market-days. 
One  morning  at  the  opening  of  the  court,  before  the  arrival 
of  the  judges,  Pille-Miche,  the  famous  Chouan,  sprang  over 
the  balustrade  into  the  middle  of  the  mob,  made  play  with 
his  elbows,  mixed  with  the  crowd,  and  fled  among  the  terrified 
spectators,  '  butting  like  a  wild  boar,'  as  Bordin  told  me. 
The  gendarmes  and  the  people  rushed  to  stop  him,  and  he 
was  caught  on  the  steps  just  as  he  had  reached  the  market- 
place. After  this  daring  attempt,  they  doubled  the  guard, 
and  a  detachment  of  men-at-arms  was  posted  on  the  square, 
for  it  was  feared  that  there  might  be  among  the  crowd  some 
Chouans  ready  to  aid  and  abet  the  accused.  Three  persons 
were  crushed  to  death  in  the  crowd  in  consequence  of  this 
attempt. 

"It  was  subsequently  discovered  that  Contenson — for,  like 
my  old  friend  Bordin,  I  cannot  bring  myself  to  call  him 
Baron  des  Tours-Minieres,  or  Bryond,  which  is  a  respectable 
old  name — that  wretch,  it  was  discovered,  had  made  away 
with  sixty  thousand  francs  of  the  stolen  treasure.  He  gave 
ten  thousand  to  the  younger  Chaussard,  whom  he  enticed 
into  the  police  and  inoculated  with  all  his  low  tastes  and 
vices ;  but  all  his  accomplices  were  unlucky.  The  Chaussard 
who  escaped  was  pitched  into  the  sea  by  Monsieur  de  Bois- 
laurier,  who  understood  from  something  said  by  Pannier  that 
Chaussard  had  turned  traitor.  Contenson  indeed  had  advised 
him  to  join  the  fugitives  in  order  to  spy  upon  them.  Vauthier 
was  killed  in  Paris,  no  doubt  by  one  of  the  Chevalier  du  Vis- 
sard's  obscure  but  devoted  followers.  The  younger  Chaus- 
sard, too,  was  finally  murdered  in  one  of  the  nocturnal  raids 
conducted  by  the  police ;  it  seems  probable  that  Contenson 
took  this  means  of  ridding  himself  of  his  demands  or  of  his 
remorse  by  '  sending  him  to  sermon,'  as  the  saying  goes. 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY.  119 

"  Madame  de  la  Chanterie  invested  her  money  in  the  Funds, 
and  purchased  this  house  by  the  particular  desire  of  her  uncle, 
the  old  Councilor  de  Boisfrelon,  who  in  fact  gave  her  the 
money  to  buy  it.  This  quiet  neighborhood  lies  close  to  the 
archbishop's  residence,  where  our  beloved  abbe  has  an  ap- 
pointment under  the  cardinal.  And  this  was  madame's  chief 
reason  for  acceding  to  the  old  lawyer's  wish  when  his  income, 
after  twenty-five  years  of  revolutions,  was  reduced  to  six 
thousand  francs  a  year.  Beside,  madame  wished  to  close  a 
life  of  such  terrible  misfortunes  as  had  overwhelmed  her  for 
six-and-twenty  years  in  almost  cloistered  seclusion. 

"You  may  now  understand  the  dignity,  the  majesty,  of  this 
long-suffering  woman — august,  indeed,  as  I  may  say " 

"  Yes,"  said  Godefroid,  "  the  stamp  of  all  she  has  endured 
has  given  her  an  indefinable  air  of  grandeur  and  majesty." 

"  Each  blow,  each  fresh  pang  has  but  increased  her  patience 
and  resignation,"  Alain  went  on.  "And  if  you  could  know 
her  as  we  do,  if  you  knew  how  keen  her  feelings  are,  and  how 
active  is  the  spring  of  tenderness  that  wells  up  in  her  heart, 
you  would  be  afraid  to  take  count  of  the  tears  she  must  shed, 
and  her  fervent  prayers  that  ascend  to  God.  Only  those  who, 
like  her,  have  known  but  a  brief  season  of  happiness  can  resist 
such  shocks.  Hers  is  a  tender  heart,  a  gentle  soul  clothed 
in  a  frame  of  steel,  tempered  by  privation,  toil,  and  aus- 
terity." 

"Such  a  life  as  hers  explains  the  life  of  hermits,"  said 
Godefroid. 

"There  are  days  when  I  wonder  what  can  be  the  meaning 
of  such  an  existence.  Is  it  that  God  reserves  these  utmost, 
bitterest  trials  for  those  of  His  creatures  who  shall  sit  on  His 
right  hand  on  the  day  after  their  death?"  said  the  good  old 
man,  quite  unaware  that  he  was  artlessly  expressing  Sweden- 
borg's  doctrine  concerning  the  angels. 

"  What ! "  exclaimed  Godefroid,  "  Madame  de  la  Chanterie 
was  mixed  up  with " 


120  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  H1STOR  Y. 

"  Madame  was  sublime  in  prison,"  Alain  said.  "In  the 
course  of  three  years  the  story  of  the  Vicar  of  Wakefield  came 
true,  for  she  reclaimed  several  women  of  profligate  lives.  And 
in  the  course  of  her  imprisonment,  as  she  took  note  of  the 
conduct  of  those  confined  with  her,  she  learned  to  feel  that 
great  pity  for  the  misery  of  the  people  which  weighs  on  her 
soul,  and  has  made  her  the  queen  of  Parisian  charity.  It  was  in 
the  horrible  Bic&tre  of  Rouen  that  she  conceived  of  the  plan 
which  we  devote  ourselves  to  carry  out.  It  was,  as  she  de- 
clared, a  dream  of  rapture,  an  angelic  inspiration  in  the  midst 
of  hell ;  she  had  no  thought  of  ever  seeing  it  realized. 

"But  here,  in  1819,  when  peace  seemed  to  be  descending 
on  Paris,  she  came  back  to  her  dream.  Madame  la  Duchesse 
d'  Angouldme — the  dauphiness,  the  Duchesse  de  Berri,  the  arch- 
bishop, and  then  the  chancellor  and  some  pious  persons  con- 
tributed very  liberally  to  the  first  necessary  expenses.  The 
fund  was  increased  by  what  we  could  spare  from  our  income, 
for  each  of  us  spends  no  more  than  is  absolutely  necessary." 

Tears  rose  to  Godefroid's  eyes. 

"  We  are  the  faithful  priesthood  of  a  Christian  idea,  and  be- 
long, body  and  soul,  to  this  work,  of  which  Madame  de  la 
Chanterie  is  the  founder  and  the  soul — that  lady  whom  you 
hear  us  respectfully  designate  as  Madame." 

"Ah,  and  I  too  am  wholly  yours !  "  cried  Godefroid,  hold- 
ing out  his  hands  to  the  worthy  man. 

"  Now,  do  you  understand  that  there  are  subjects  of  conver- 
sation absolutely  prohibited  here,  never  even  to  be  alluded 
to?"  Alain  went  on.  "  Do  you  appreciate  the  obligation  of 
reticence  under  which  we  all  feel  ourselves  to  a  lady  whom  we 
reverence  as  a  saint  ?  Do  you  understand  the  charm  exerted 
by  a  woman  made  sacred  by  her  misfortunes,  having  learned 
so  many  things,  knowing  the  innermost  secret  of  every  form 
of  suffering — a  woman  who  has  derived  a  lesson  from  every 
grief,  whose  every  virtue  has  the  twofold  sanction  of  the 
hardest  tests  and  of  constant  practice,  whose  soul  is  spotless 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY.  121 

and  above  reproach ;  who  has  known  motherhood  only  through 
its  sorrows,  and  conjugal  affection  only  through  its  bitterness ; 
on  whom  life  never  smiled  but  for  a  few  months — for  whom 
heaven  no  doubt  keeps  a  palm  in  store  as  the  reward  of  resig- 
nation and  gentleness  amid  such  sorrows  ?  Is  she  not  superior 
to  Job  in  that  she  has  never  murmured  ? 

"  So  you  need  never  again  be  surprised  to  find  her  speech 
so  impressive,  her  old  age  so  fresh,  her  spirit  so  full  of  com- 
munion, her  looks  so  persuasive;  she  has  had  powers  extra- 
ordinary bestowed  on  her  as  a  confidante  of  the  sorrowing,  for 
she  has  known  every  sorrow.  In  her  presence  smaller  griefs 
are  mute." 

"  She  is  the  living  embodiment  of  charity,"  cried  Godefroid 
with  enthusiasm.  "  May  I  become  one  of  you?  " 

"  You  must  endure  the  tests,  and,  above  all  else,  BELIEVE  !  " 
said  the  old  man  with  gentle  excitement.  "So  long  as  you 
have  not  hold  on  faith,  so  long  as  you  have  not  assimilated  in 
your  heart  and  brain  the  divine  meaning  of  Saint  Paul's 
epistle  on  Charity,  you  can  take  no  part  in  our  work." 

PARIS,  1843-1845. 


SECOND  EPISODE. 

INITIATED. 

What  is  nobly  good  is  contagious,  as  evil  is.  And  by  the 
time  Madame  de  la  Chanterie's  boarder  had  dwelt  for  some 
months  in  this  silent  old  house,  after  the  story  told  him  by 
Monsieur  Alain,  which  filled  him  with  the  deepest  respect  for 
the  half-monastic  life  he  saw  around  him,  he  became  conscious 
of  the  ease  of  mind  that  comes  of  a  regular  life,  of  quiet 
habits  and  harmonious  tempers  in  those  with  whom  we  live. 
In  four  months  Godefroid,  never  hearing  an  angry  tone  or  the 
least  dispute,  owned  to  himself  that  since  he  had  come  to 
years  of  discretion  he  did  not  remember  ever  being  so  com- 
pletely at  peace — for  he  could  not  say  happy.  He  looked  on 
the  world  from  afar,  and  judged  it  sanely.  At  last  the  desire 
he  had  cherished  these  three  months  past  to  take  his  part  in 
the  deeds  of  this  mysterious  association  had  become  a  passion; 
and  without  being  a  very  profound  philosopher,  the  reader 
may  imagine  what  strength  such  a  passion  may  assume  in 
seclusion. 

So  one  day — a  day  marked  as  solemn  by  the  ascendency  of 
the  Spirit — Godefroid,  after  sounding  his  heart  and  measuring 
his  powers,  went  up  to  his  good  friend  Alain — whom  Madame 
de  la  Chanterie  always  called  her  lamb — for  of  all  the  dwellers 
under  that  roof  he  had  always  seemed  to  Godefroid  the  most 
accessible  and  the  least  formidable.  To  him,  then,  he  would 
apply,  to  obtain  from  the  worthy  man  some  information  as  to 
the  sort  of  priesthood  which  these  Brethren  in  God  exercised 
in  Paris.  Many  allusions  to  a  period  of  probation  suggested 
to  him  that  he  would  be  put  to  initiatory  tests  of  some  kind. 
His  curiosity  had  not  been  fully  satisfied  by  what  the  vener- 
able old  man  had  told  him  of  the  reasons  why  he  had  joined 
(122) 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY.  123 

Madame  de  la  Chanterie's  association ;  he  wanted  to  know 
more  about  this. 

At  half-past  ten  o'clock  that  evening  Godefroid  found  him- 
self for  the  third  time  in  Monsieur  Alain's  rooms,  just  as  the 
old  man  was  preparing  to  read  his  chapter  of  The  Imitation. 
This  time  the  mild  old  man  could  not  help  smiling,  and  he 
said  to  the  young  man,  before  allowing  him  to  speak : 

"  Why  do  you  apply  to  me,  my  dear  boy,  instead  of  address- 
ing yourself  to  madame  ?  I  am  the  most  ignorant,  the  least 
spiritual,  the  most  imperfect  member  of  the  household.  For 
the  last  three  days  madame  and  my  friends  have  seen  into 
your  heart,"  he  added,  with  a  little  knowing  air. 

"And  what  have  they  seen?"  asked  Godefroid. 

"  Oh,"  said  the  good  man,  with  perfect  simplicity,  "they 
have  seen  a  guileless  desire  to  belong  to  our  community.  But 
the  feeling  is  not  yet  a  very  ardent  vocation.  Nay,"  he  re- 
plied to  an  impulsive  gesture  of  Godefroid's,  "  you  have  more 
curiosity  than  fervor.  In  fact,  you  have  not  so  completely 
freed  yourself  from  your  old  ideas  but  that  you  imagine  some- 
thing adventurous,  something  romantic,  as  the  phrase  goes,  in 
the  incidents  of  our  life " 

Godefroid  could  not  help  turning  red. 

"  You  fancy  that  there  is  some  resemblance  between  our 
occupations  and  those  of  the  Khalifs  in  the  '  Arabian  Nights,' 
and  you  anticipate  a  kind  of  satisfaction  in  playing  the  part 
of  the  good  genii  in  the  idyllic  beneficences  of  which  you 
dream  !  Ah,  ha  !  my  son,  your  smile  of  confusion  shows 
me  that  we  were  not  mistaken.  How  could  you  expect  to 
conceal  your  thoughts  from  us,  who  make  it  our  business  to 
detect  the  hidden  impulses  of  the  soul,  the  cunning  of 
poverty,  the  calculations  of  the  needy ;  who  are  honest  spies, 
the  police  of  a  merciful  Providence,  old  judges  whose  code  of 
law  knows  only  absolution,  and  physicians  of  every  malady 
whose  only  prescription  is  a  wise  use  of  money?  Still,  my 
dear  boy,  we  do  not  quarrel  with  the  motives  that  bring  us  a 


124  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

neophyte  if  only  he  stays  with  us  and  becomes  a  brother  of  our 
Order.  We  shall  judge  you  by  your  works.  There  are  two 
kinds  of  curiosity — one  for  good  and  one  for  evil.  At  this 
moment  your  curiosity  is  for  good.  If  you  are  to  become  a 
laborer  in  our  vineyard,  the  juice  of  the  grapes  will  give  you 
perpetual  thirst  for  the  divine  fruit.  The  initiation  looks  easy, 
but  is  difficult,  as  in  every  natural  science.  In  well-doing,  as 
in  poetry,  nothing  can  be  easier  than  to  clutch  at  its  semblance  ; 
but  here,  as  on  Parnassus,  we  are  satisfied  with  nothing  short 
of  perfection.  To  become  one  of  us,  you  must  attain  to 
great  knowledge  of  life — and  of  such  life.  Good  God  ! 
Of  that  Paris  life  which  defies  the  scrutiny  of  the  chief  of  the 
police  and  his  men.  It  is  our  task  to  unmask  the  permanent 
conspiracy  of  evil,  and  detect  it  under  forms  so  endlessly 
changing  that  they  might  be  thought  infinite.  In  Paris, 
Charity  must  be  as  omniscient  as  Sin,  just  as  the  police  agent 
must  be  as  cunning  as  the  thief.  We  have  to  be  at  once  frank 
and  suspicious;  our  judgment  must  be  as  certain  and  as  swift 
as  our  eye. 

"  As  you  see,  dear  boy,  we  are  all  old  and  worn  out ;  but 
then  we  are  so  well  satisfied  with  the  results  we  have  achieved 
that  we  wish  not  to  die  without  leaving  successors,  and  we 
hold  you  all  the  more  dear  because  you  may,  if  you  will,  be 
our  first  disciple.  For  us  there  is  no  risk,  we  owe  you  to 
God  !  Yours  is  a  sweet  nature  turned  sour,  and  since  you 
came  to  live  here  the  evil  leaven  is  weaker.  Madame's  heav- 
enly nature  has  had  its  effect  on  you. 

"We  held  council  yesterday;  and  inasmuch  as  you  have 
given  me  your  confidence,  my  good  brothers  decided  on 
making  me  your  instructor  and  guide.  Are  you  satisfied  with 
this  arrangement?" 

"  Oh,  my  kind  Monsieur  Alain,  your  eloquence  has  aroused, 
awakened " 

"  It  is  not  I  that  speak  well,  my  dear  boy,  it  is  that  great 
deeds  are  eloquent.  We  are  always  sure  of  soaring  high  if 


THE   SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  125 

we  obey  God  and  imitate  Jesus  Christ  so  far  as  lies  in  man 
aided  by  faith." 

"This  moment  has  decided  my  fate;  I  feel  the  ardor  of 
the  neophyte  !  "  cried  Godefroid.  "  I,  too,  would  fain  spend 
my  life  in  well-doing " 

"  That  is  the  secret  of  dwelling  in  God,"  replied  the  good 
man.  "  Have  you  meditated  on  our  motto  :  Transire  benefaci- 
endo.  Transire  means  to  pass  beyond  this  life,  leaving  a  long 
train  of  good  actions  behind  you." 

"I  have  understood  it  so  and  I  have  written  up  the  motto 
of  the  Order  in  front  of  my  bed." 

"That  is  well.  And  that  action,  so  trivial  in  itself,  is  of 
great  value  in  my  eyes.  Well,  my  son,  I  have  your  first  task 
ready  for  you,  I  will  see  you  with  your  foot  in  the  stirrup. 
We  must  part.  Yes,  for  I  have  to  leave  our  retreat  and  take 
my  place  in  the  heart  of  a  volcano.  I  am  going  as  foreman 
in  a  large  factory  where  all  the  workmen  are  infected  with 
communistic  doctrines — and  dream  of  social  destruction,  of 
murdering  the  masters,  never  seeing  that  this  would  be  to 
murder  industry,  manufacture,  and  commerce. 

"  I  shall  remain  there — who  knows — a  year,  perhaps,  as 
cashier,  keeping  the  books,  and  making  my  way  into  a  hun- 
dred or  more  humble  homes,  among  men  who  were  misled  by 
poverty,  no  doubt,  before  they  were  deluded  by  bad  books. 
However,  we  shall  see  each  other  here  every  Sunday  and  holi- 
day ;  as  I  shall  live  in  the  same  quarter  of  the  town  we  may 
meet  at  the  church  of  Saint-Jacques  du  Haut-Pas ;  I  shall 
attend  mass  there  every  morning  at  half-past  seven.  If  you 
should  happen  to  meet  me  elsewhere,  you  must  never  recog- 
nize me,  unless  I  rub  my  hands  with  an  air  of  satisfaction. 
That  is  one  of  our  signals.  Like  the  deaf-mutes,  we  have  a 
language  by  signs,  of  which  the  necessity  will  soon  be  more 
than  abundantly  evident  to  you." 

Godefroid's  expression  was  intelligible  to  Monsieur  Alain, 
for  he  smiled  and  went  on — 


128  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY. 

"  Now  for  your  business.  We  do  not  practice  either  benef- 
icence or  philanthropy  as  they  are  known  to  you,  under  a 
variety  of  branches  which  are  preyed  upon  by  swindlers,  just 
like  any  other  form  of  trade.  We  exercise  charity  as  it  is 
defined  by  our  great  and  sublime  master  Saint  Paul ;  for  it  is 
our  belief,  my  son,  that  such  charity  alone  can  heal  the  woes 
of  Paris.  Thus,  in  our  eyes,  sorrow,  poverty,  suffering,  trouble, 
evil — from  whatever  cause  they  may  proceed  and  in  whatever 
class  of  society  we  find  them — have  equal  claims  upon  us. 
Whatever  their  creed  or  their  opinions,  the  unfortunate  are, 
first  and  foremost,  unfortunate ;  we  do  not  try  to  persuade 
them  to  look  to  our  holy  mother  the  church  until  we  have 
rescued  them  from  despair  and  starvation.  And  even  then 
we  try  to  convert  them  by  example  and  kindness,  for  thus  we 
believe  that  we  have  the  help  of  God.  All  coercion  is  wrong. 

"Of  all  the  wretchedness  in  Paris,  the  most  difficult  to  dis- 
cover and  the  bitterest  to  endure  is  that  of  the  respectable 
middle-class,  the  better  class  of  citizens,  when  they  come  to 
poverty,  for  they  make  it  a  point  of  honor  to  conceal  it. 
Such  disasters  as  these,  my  dear  Godefroid,  are  the  object  of 
our  particular  care.  Such  persons,  when  we  help  them,  show 
intelligence  and  good  feeling ;  they  return  us  with  interest 
what  we  may  lend  to  them ;  and  in  the  course  of  time  their  re- 
payments cover  the  losses  we  meet  with  through  the  disabled, 
or  by  swindlers,  or  those  whom  misfortune  has  stultified. 
Sometimes  we  get  useful  information  from  those  we  have 
helped ;  but  the  work  has  grown  to  such  vast  dimensions,  and 
its  details  are  so  numerous,  that  it  is  beyond  our  powers.  Now, 
for  the  last  seven  or  eight  months,  we  have  a  physician  in  our 
employment  in  each  district  of  the  city  of  Paris.  Each  of  us 
has  four  arrondissements  (or  wards)  under  his  eye;  and  we 
are  prepared  to  pay  to  each  three  thousand  francs  a  year  to 
take  charge  of  our  poor.  He  is  required  to  give  up  his  time 
and  care  to  them  by  preference,  but  we  do  not  prevent  his 
taking  other  patients.  Would  you  believe  that  we  have  not 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY,  127 

in  eight  months  been  able  to  find  twelve  such  men,  twelve 
good  men,  in  spite  of  the  pecuniary  aid  offered  by  our  friends 
and  acquaintance?  You  see,  we  needed  men  of  absolute 
secrecy,  of  pure  life,  of  recognized  abilities,  and  with  a  love 
of  doing  good.  Well,  in  Paris  there  are  perhaps  ten  thousand 
men  fit  for  the  work,  and  yet  in  a  year's  search  the  twelve 
elect  have  not  been  found." 

"Our  Lord  found  it  hard  to  collect  His  apostles,"  said 
Godefroid,  "  and  there  were  a  traitor  and  a  disbeliever  among 
them  after  all !  " 

"At  last,  within  the  past  fifteen  days,  each  arrondissement 
has  been  provided  with  a  Visitor,"  said  the  old  man,  smiling 
— "  for  so  we  call  our  physicians — and,  indeed,  within  those 
fifteen  days  there  has  been  a  vast  increase  of  business.  How- 
ever, we  have  worked  all  the  harder.  I  tell  you  this  secret  of 
our  infant  fraternity  because  you  must  make  acquaintance  with 
the  physician  of  your  district,  all  the  more  so  because  we  de- 
pend on  him  for  information.  The  gentleman's  name  is 
Berton — Doctor  Berton — and  he  lives  in  the  Rue  de  1'Enfer. 

"  Now  for  the  facts.  Doctor  Berton  is  attending  a  lady 
whose  disease  seems  in  some  way  to  defy  science.  That  in- 
deed does  not  concern  us,  but  the  Faculty  only ;  our  business 
is  to  find  out  the  poverty  of  the  sick  woman's  family,  which 
the  doctor  believes  to  be  frightful,  and  concealed  with  a  de- 
termination and  pride  that  baffle  all  our  inquiries.  Hitherto, 
my  dear  boy,  this  would  have  been  my  task;  but  now  the 
work  to  which  I  am  devoting  myself  makes  an  assistant  neces- 
sary in  my  four  districts,  and  you  must  be  that  assistant.  The 
family  lives  in  the  Rue  Notre-Dame  des  Champs,  in  a  house 
looking  out  over  the  Boulevard  du  Mont-Parnasse.  You  will 
easily  find  a  room  to  let  there,  and  while  lodging  there  for  a 
time  you  must  try  to  discover  the  truth.  Be  sordid  as  regards 
your  own  expenses,  but  do  not  trouble  your  head  about  the 
money  you  give.  I  will  send  you  such  sums  as  we  consider 
necessary,  taking  all  the  circumstances  of  the  case  into  con- 


128  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY. 

sideration.  But  study  the  moral  character  of  these  unfortu- 
nate people.  A  good  heart  and  noble  feelings  are  the  security 
for  our  loans.  Stingy  to  ourselves  and  generous  to  suffering, 
we  must  still  be  careful  and  never  rash,  for  we  dip  into  the 
treasury  of  the  poor.  Go  to-morrow,  and  remember  how 
much  power  lies  in  your  hands.  The  Brethren  will  be  on 
your  side." 

"Ah!"  cried  Godefroid,  "you  have  given  me  so  much 
pleasure  in  trusting  me  to  do  good  and  be  worthy  of  some 
day  being  one  of  you,  that  I  shall  not  sleep  for  joy." 

"Stay,  my  boy,  one  last  piece  of  advice.  The  prohibition 
to  recognize  me  unless  I  make  the  sign  concerns  the  other 
gentlemen  and  madame,  and  even  the  servants  of  the  house. 
Absolute  incognito  is  indispensable  to  all  our  undertakings, 
and  we  are  so  constantly  obliged  to  preserve  it  that  we  have 
made  it  a  law  without  exceptions.  We  must  be  unknown,  lost 
in  Paris. 

"  Remember,  too,  my  dear  Godefroid,  the  very  spirit  of 
our  Order,  which  requires  us  never  to  appear  as  benefactors, 
but  to  play  the  obscure  part  of  intermediaries.  We  always 
represent  ourselves  as  the  agents  of  some  saintly  and  benefi- 
cent personage — are  we  not  toiling  for  God? — so  that  no 
gratitude  may  be  considered  due  to  ourselves,  and  that  we 
may  not  be  supposed  to  be  rich.  True,  sincere  humility,  not 
the  false  humility  of  those  who  keep  in  the  shade  that  others 
may  throw  a  light  on  them,  must  inspire  and  govern  all  your 
thoughts.  You  may  rejoice  when  you  succeed ;  but  so  long 
as  you  feel  the  least  impulse  of  vanity,  you  will  be  unworthy 
to  join  the  Brotherhood.  We  have  known  two  perfect  men. 
One,  who  was  one  of  our  founders,  Judge  Popinot ;  the  other, 
who  was  known  by  his  works,  was  a  country  doctor  who  has 
left  his  name  written  in  a  remote  parish.  He,  my  dear  Gode- 
froid, was  one  of  the  greatest  men  of  our  day ;  he  raised  a 
whole  district  from  a  savage  state  to  one  of  prosperity,  from 
irreligion  to  the  Catholic  faith,  from  barbarism  to  civilization. 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  129 

The  names  of  those  two  men  are  graven  on  our  hearts,  and 
we  regard  them  as  our  examples.  We  should  be  happy  indeed 
if  we  might  one  day  have  in  Paris  such  influence  as  that 
country  doctor  had  in  his  own  district. 

"But  here  the  plague-spot  is  immeasurable,  and,  so  far, 
quite  beyond  our  powers.  May  God  long  preserve  madame, 
and  send  us  many  such  helpers  as  you,  and  then  perhaps  we 
may  found  an  institution  that  will  lead  men  to  bless  His  holy 
religion. 

"  Well,  farewell.     Your  initiation  now  begins. 

"  Bless  me  !  I  chatter  like  a  professor,  and  was  forgetting 
the  most  important  matter.  Here  is  the  address  of  the  family 
I  spoke  of,"  he  went  on,  handing  a  scrap  of  paper  to  Gode- 
froid.  "And  I  have  added  the  number  of  Monsieur  Berton's 
house  in  the  Rue  de  1'Enfer.  Now,  go  and  pray  God  to  help 
you." 

Godefroid  took  the  good  old  man's  hands  and  pressed  them 
affectionately,  bidding  him  good-night,  and  promising  to 
forget  none  of  his  injunctions. 

"All  you  have  said,"  he  added,  "is  stamped  on  my 
memory  for  life." 

Alain  smiled  with  no  expression  of  doubt,  and  rose  to  go 
and  kneel  at  his  prie-Dieu.  Godefroid  went  back  to  his  own 
room,  happy  in  being  at  last  allowed  to  know  the  mysteries 
of  this  household,  and  to  have  an  occupation  which,  in  his 
present  frame  of  mind,  was  really  a  pleasure. 

At  breakfast  next  morning  there  was  no  Monsieur  Alain, 
but  Godefroid  made  no  remark  on  his  absence.  Nor  was  he 
questioned  as  to  the  mission  given  him  by  the  old  man  ;  thus 
he  received  his  first  lesson  in  secrecy.  After  breakfast,  how- 
ever, he  took  Madame  de  la  Chanterie  aside,  and  told  her 
that  he  should  be  absent  for  a  few  days. 

"Very  well,  my  child,"  replied  Madame  de  la  Chanterie. 
"And  try  to  do  your  sponsor  credit,  for  Monsieur  Alain  has 
answered  for  you  to  his  brethren." 
9 


130  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

Godefroid  took  leave  of  the  other  three  men,  who  embraced 
him  affectionately,  seeming  thus  to  give  him  their  blessing  on 
his  outset  in  his  laborious  career. 

Association — one  of  the  greatest  social  forces  which  was 
the  making  of  Europe  in  the  Middle  Ages — is  based  on  feel- 
ings which  have  ceased  since  1792,  to  exist  in  France,  where 
the  individul  is  now  supreme  over  the  State.  Association 
requires,  in  the  first  place,  a  kind  of  devotedness  which  is  not 
understood  in  this  country;  a  simplicity  of  faith  which  is 
contrary  to  the  national  spirit ;  and,  finally,  a  discipline  against 
which  everything  rebels,  and  which  nothing  but  the  Catholic 
faith  can  exact.  As  soon  as  an  association  is  formed  in 
France,  each  member  of  it,  on  returning  home  from  a  meeting 
where  the  finest  sentiments  have  been  expressed,  makes  a  bed 
for  himself  of  the  collective  devotion  of  this  combination  of 
forces,  and  tries  to  milk  for  his  own  benefit  the  cow  belonging 
to  all,  till  the  poor  thing,  inadequate  to  meet  so  many  indi- 
vidual demands,  dies  of  attenuation. 

None  can  tell  how  many  generous  emotions  have  been 
nipped,  how  many  fervid  germs  have  perished,  how  much 
resource  has  been  crushed  and  lost  to  the  country  by  the 
shameful  frauds  of  the  French  secret  societies,  of  the  patriotic 
fund  for  the  Champ  d'Asile  (emigration  to  America),  and 
other  political  swindles,  which  ought  to  have  produced  great 
and  noble  dramas,  but  turned  out  mere  farces  of  the  lower 
police  courts. 

It  was  the  same  with  industrial  as  with  political  associations. 
Self-interest  took  the  place  of  public  spirit.  The  corporations 
and  Hanseatic  guilds  of  the  Middle  Ages,  to  which  we  shall 
some  day  return,  are  as  yet  out  of  the  question ;  the  only 
societies  that  still  exist  are  religious  institutions,  and  at  this 
moment  they  are  being  very  roughly  attacked,  for  the  natural 
tendency  of  the  sick  is  to  rebel  against  the  remedies  and  often 
to  rend  the  physician.  France  knows  not  what  self-denial 
means.  Hence  no  association  can  hold  together  but  by  the 


THE   SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY.  131 

aid  of  religious  sentiment,  the  only  power  that  can  quell 
the  rebellion  of  the  intellect,  the  calculations  of  ambition, 
and  greed  of  every  kind.  Those  who  are  in  search  of  worlds 
fail  to  understand  that  ASSOCIATION  has  worlds  in  its  gift. 

Godefroid,  as  he  made  his  way  through  the  streets,  felt 
himself  a  different  man.  Any  one  who  could  have  read  his 
mind  would  have  wondered  at  the  curious  phenomenon  of  the 
communication  of  the  spirit  of  union.  He  was  no  longer 
one  man,  but  a  beirg  multiplied  tenfold,  feeling  himself  the 
representative  of  five  persons  whose  united  powers  were  at  the 
back  of  all  he  did,  and  who  walked  with  him  on  his  way. 
With  this  strength  in  his  heart,  he  was  conscious  of  a  fullness 
of  life,  a  lofty  power  that  uplifted  him.  It  was,  as  he  afterward 
owned,  one  of  the  happiest  moments  of  his  life,  for  he  rejoiced 
in  a  new  sense — that  of  an  omnipotence  more  absolute  than 
that  of  despots.  Moral  force,  like  thought,  knows  no  limits. 

"This  is  living  for  others,"  said  he  to  himself,  "acting  with 
others  as  if  we  were  but  one  man,  and  acting  alone  as  if  we 
were  all  together !  This  is  having  Charity  for  a  leader,  the 
fairest  and  most  living  of  all  the  ideals  that  have  been  created 
of  the  Catholic  virtues.  Yes,  this  is  living !  Come,  I  must 
subdue  this  childish  exaltation  which  Father  Alain  would 
laugh  to  scorn.  Still,  is  it  not  strange  that  it  is  by  dint  of 
trying  to  annul  my  Self  that  I  have  found  the  power  so  long 
wished  for?  The  world  of  misfortune  is  to  be  my  inher- 
itance." 

He  crossed  the  precincts  of  Notre-Dame  to  the  Avenue  de 
1'Observatoire  in  such  high  spirits  that  he  did  not  heed  the 
length  of  the  walk. 

Having  reached  the  Rue  Notre-Dame  des  Champs,  at  the 
end  of  the  Rue  de  1' Quest,  he  was  surprised  to  find  such  pools 
of  mud  in  so  handsome  a  quarter  of  the  town,  for  neither  of 
those  streets  was  as  yet  paved.  The  foot-passenger  had  to 
walk  on  planks  laid  close  to  the  walls  of  the  marshy  gardens, 


132  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

or  creep  by  the  houses  on  narrow  side-paths,  which  were  soon 
swamped  by  the  stagnant  waters  that  turned  them  into 
gutters. 

After  much  seeking,  he  discovered  the  house  described 
to  him  and  got  to  it,  not  without  some  difficulty.  It  was 
evidently  an  old  manufactory  which  had  been  abandoned. 
The  building  was  narrow,  and  the  front  was  a  long  wall  pierced 
with  windows  quite  devoid  of  any  ornament ;  but  there  were 
none  of  these  square  openings  on  the  first  floor — only  a 
wretched  back-door. 

Godefroid  supposed  that  the  owner  had  contrived  a  number 
of  rooms  in  this  structure  to  his  own  profit,  for  over  the  door 
there  was  a  board  scrawled  by  hand  to  this  effect :  SEVERAL 
ROOMS  TO  LET.  Godefroid  rang,  but  no  one  came ;  and,  as  he 
stood  waiting,  a  passer-by  pointed  out  to  him  that  there  was 
another  entrance  to  the  house  from  the  boulevard,  where  he 
would  find  somebody  to  speak  to. 

Godefroid  acted  on  the  information,  and  from  the  boulevard 
he  saw  the  front  of  the  house  screened  by  the  trees  of  a  small 
garden-plot.  This  garden,  very  ill-kept,  sloped  to  the  house, 
for  there  is  such  a  difference  of  level  between  the  boulevard 
and  the  Rue  Notre-Dame  des  Champs  as  to  make  the  garden  a 
sort  of  ditch.  Godefroid  went  down  the  path,  and  at  the 
bottom  of  it  saw  an  old  woman  whose  dilapidated  garb  was  in 
perfect  harmony  with  the  dwelling. 

"Was  it  you  who  rang  in  the  Rue  Notre-Dame?"  she 
asked. 

"  Yes,  madame.     Is  it  your  business  to  show  the  rooms?" 

On  a  reply  in  the  affirmative  from  this  portress,  whose  age 
it  was  difficult  to  determine,  Godefroid  inquired  whether  the 
house  was  tenanted  by  quiet  folk ;  his  occupations  required 
peace  and  silence  ;  he  was  a  bachelor,  and  wished  to  arrange 
with  the  doorkeeper  to  cook  and  clean  for  him. 

On  this  hint  the  woman  became  gracious,  and  said — 

"  Monsieur  could  not  have  done  better  than  to  hit  on  this 


THE   SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY,  133 

house ;  for,  excepting  the  days  when  there  are  doings  at  the 
Chaumiere,  the  boulevard  is  as  deserted  as  the  Pontine 
Marshes ' ' 

''Do  you  know  the  Pontine  Marshes?"  asked  Godefroid. 

"No,  sir;  but  there  is  an  old  gentleman  upstairs  whose 
daughter  is  always  in  a  dying  state,  and  he  says  so.  I  only 
repeat  it.  That  poor  old  man  will  be  truly  glad  to  think  that 
you  want  peace  and  quiet,  for  a  lodger  who  stormed  around 
would  be  the  death  of  his  daughter.  And  we  have  two  writers 
of  some  kind  on  the  third  floor,  but  they  come  in  for  the  day 
at  midnight,  and  then  for  night  they  go  out  at  eight  in  the 
morning.  Authors,  they  say  they  are,  but  I  do  not  know 
where  or  when  they  work." 

As  she  spoke,  the  portress  led  Godefroid  up  one  of  those 
horrible  stairs  built  of  wood  and  brick,  in  such  an  unholy 
alliance  that  it  is  impossible  to  say  whether  the  wood  is  part- 
ing from  the  bricks  or  the  bricks  are  disgusted  at  being  set  in 
the  wood;  while  both  materials  seem  to  fortify  their  disunion 
by  masses  of  dust  in  summer  and  of  mud  in  winter.  The 
walls,  of  cracked  plaster,  bore  more  inscriptions  than  the 
Academy  of  Belles-lettres  ever  invented. 

The  woman  stopped  on  the  second  floor. 

"Now,  here,  sir,  are  two  very  good  rooms,  opening  into 
each  other,  and  on  to  Monsieur  Bernard's  landing.  He  is 
the  old  gentleman  I  mentioned — and  quite  the  gentleman. 
He  has  the  ribbon  of  the  Legion  of  Honor,  but  he  has  had 
great  troubles,  it  would  seem,  for  he  never  wears  it.  When 
first  they  came  they  had  a  servant  to  wait  on  them,  a  man 
from  the  country,  and  they  sent  him  away  close  on  three  years 
ago.  The  lady's  young  gentleman — her  son — does  everything 
now  ;  he  manages  it  all " 

Godefroid  looked  shocked. 

"  Oh  !  "  said  the  woman,  "  don't  be  uneasy,  they  will  say 
nothing  to  you  ;  they  never  speak  to  anybody.  The  gentle- 
man has  been  here  ever  since  the  Revolution  of  July ;  he  came 


134  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

in  1831.  They  are  some  high  provincial  family,  I  believe, 
ruined  by  the  change  of  government ;  and  proud  !  and  as 
mute  as  fishes.  For  four  years,  sir,  they  have  never  let  me 
do  the  least  thing  for  them,  for  fear  of  having  to  pay.  A 
five-franc  piece  on  New  Year's  Day,  that's  every  sou  I  get  out 
of  them.  Give  me  your  authors  !  I  get  ten  francs  a  month, 
only  to  tell  everybody  who  comes  to  ask  for  them  that  they 
left  at  the  end  of  last  quarter." 

All  this  babble  led  Godefroid  to  hope  for  an  ally  in  this 
woman,  who  explained  to  him,  as  she  praised  the  airiness  of 
the  two  rooms  and  adjoining  dressing-closets,  that  she  was 
not  the  portress,  but  the  landlord's  deputy  and  janitress, 
managing  everything  for  him  to  a  great  extent. 

"And  you  may  trust  me,  monsieur,  I  promise  you  !  Mad- 
ame Vauthier — that's  me — would  rather  have  nothing  at  all 
than  take  a  sou  of  anybody  else's." 

Madame  Vauthier  soon  came  to  terms  with  Godefroid,  who 
wished  to  take  the  rooms  by  the  month  and  ready  furnished. 
These  wretched  lodgings,  rented  by  students  or  authors 
"down  on  their  luck,"  were  let  furnished  or  unfurnished,  as 
might  be  required.  The  spacious  lofts  over  the  whole  house 
were  full  of  furniture.  But  Monsieur  Bernard  himself  had 
furnished  the  rooms  he  occupied. 

By  getting  Madame  Vauthier  to  talk,  Godefroid  discovered 
that  her  ambition  was  to  set  up  a  middle-class  boarding-house ; 
but  in  the  course  of  five  years  she  had  failed  to  meet  with  a 
single  boarder  among  her  lodgers.  She  inhabited  the  first 
floor,  on  the  side  toward  the  boulevard  ;  thus  she  was  herself 
the  doorkeeper,  with  the  help  of  a  big  dog,  a  sturdy  girl,  and 
a  boy  who  cleaned  the  boots,  ran  errands,  and  did  the  rooms, 
two  creatures  as  poor  as  herself,  in  harmony  with  the  squalor 
of  the  house  and  its  inhabitants,  and  the  desolate,  neglected 
appearance  of  the  garden  in  front. 

They  were  both  foundlings,  to  whom  the  widow  Vauthier 
gave  no  wages  but  their  food — and  such  food  !  The  boy,  of 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY.  135 

whom  Godefroid  caught  a  glimpse,  wore  a  ragged  blouse,  list 
slippers  instead  of  shoes,  and  sabots  (wooden  shoes)  to  go  out 
in.  With  a  shock  of  hair,  as  tousled  as  a  sparrow  taking  a 
bath,  and  blackened  hands,  as  soon  as  he  had  done  the  work 
of  the  house,  he  went  off  to  measure  wood-logs  in  a  woodyard 
hard  by,  and  when  his  day  was  over — at  half-past  four  for 
wood-sawyers — he  returned  to  his  occupations.  He  fetched 
water  for  the  household  from  the  fountain  by  the  Observatory 
and  the  widow  supplied  it  to  the  lodgers,  as  well  as  the  faggots 
which  he  chopped  and  tied. 

Nepomucene — this  was  the  name  of  the  widow  Vauthier's 
slave — handed  over  his  earnings  to  his  mistress.  In  summer- 
time the  unhappy  waif  served  as  waiter  in  the  wine  saloons  by 
the  barriere  on  Sundays  and  Mondays.  Then  the  woman  lent 
him  decent  clothes  to  wear. 

As  for  the  girl,  she  cooked  under  the  widow's  orders,  and 
helped  her  in  her  trade  work  at  other  times,  for  the  woman 
plied  a  trade;  she  made  list  slippers  for  hawkers  to  sell. 

All  these  details  were  known  to  Godefroid  within  an  hour, 
for  Madame  Vauthier  took  him  all  over  the  house,  showing 
him  how  it  had  been  altered.  A  silkworm  establishment  had 
been  carried  on  there  till  1828,  not  so  much  for  the  produc- 
tion of  silk  as  for  that  of  the  eggs — the  seed,  as  it  is  called. 
Eleven  acres  of  mulberry-trees  at  Mont-Rouge  and  three  acres 
in  the  Rue  de  1' Quest,  since  built  over,  had  supplied  food  for 
this  nursery  for  silkworms'  eggs. 

Madame  Vauthier  was  telling  Godefroid  that  Monsieur 
Barbet,  who  had  lent  the  capital  to  an  Italian  named  Fresconi 
to  carry  on  this  business,  had  been  obliged  to  sell  those  three 
acres  to  recover  the  money  secured  by  a  mortgage  on  the  land 
and  buildings,  and  was  pointing  out  the  plot  of  ground,  lying 
on  the  other  side  of  the  Rue  Notre-Dame  des  Champs,  when 
a  tall  and  meagre  old  man,  with  perfectly  white  hair,  came 
in  sight  at  the  end  of  the  street  where  it  crosses  the  Rue  de 
1'Ouest. 


136  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY. 

"In  the  very  nick  of  time!"  cried  Madame  Vauthier. 
"  Look,  that  is  your  neighbor,  Monsieur  Bernard.  Monsieur 
Bernard,"  cried  she,  as  soon  as  the  old  man  was  within  hear- 
ing* "you  will  not  be  alone  now;  this  gentleman  here  has  just 
taken  the  rooms  opposite  yours " 

Monsieur  Bernard  looked  up  at  Godefroid  with  an  appre- 
hensive eye  that  was  easy  to  read ;  it  was  as  though  he  had 
said,  "Then  the  misfortune  I  have  so  long  feared  has  come 
upon  me !  " 

"What,  monsieur,"  said  he,  "  you  propose  to  reside  here?" 

"Yes,  monsieur/'  said  Godefroid  civilly.  "This  is  no 
home  for  those  who  are  lucky  in  the  world,  and  it  is  the 
cheapest  lodging  I  have  seen  in  this  part  of  the  town.  Madame 
Vauthier  does  not  expect  to  harbor  millionaires.  Good-day, 
then,  Madame  Vauthier;  arrange  things  so  that  I  may  come  in 
at  six  o'clock  this  evening.  I  shall  return  punctually." 

And  Godefroid  went  off  toward  the  Rue  de  1' Quest,  walk- 
ing slowly,  for  the  anxiety  he  had  read  in  the  old  man's  face 
led  him  to  suppose  that  he  wanted  to  dispute  the  matter  with 
him.  And,  in  fact,  after  some  little  hesitation,  Monsieur 
Bernard  turned  on  his  heel  and  walked  quickly  enough  to 
come  up  with  Godefroid. 

"  That  old  wretch  !  he  wants  to  hinder  him  from  coming 
back,"  said  Madame  Vauthier  to  herself.  "  Twice  already 
he  has  played  me  that  trick.  Patience !  His  rent  is  due  in 
five  days,  and  if  he  does  not  pay  it  down  on  the  nail,  out  he 
goes  !  Monsieur  Barbet  is  a  tiger  of  a  sort  that  does  not  need 
much  lashing,  and — I  should  like  to  know  what  he  is  saying 
to  him — Felicite  !  Felicite  !  you  lazy  hussy,  will  you  make 
haste?"  cried  the  widow  in  a  formidable  croak,  for  she  had 
assumed  an  affable  piping  tone  in  speaking  to  Godefroid. 

The  girl,  a  sturdy,  red-haired  lass,  came  running  out. 

"Just  keep  a  sharp  eye  on  everything  for  a  few  seconds,  do 
you  hear?  I  shall  be  back  in  five  minutes." 

And  the  widow  Vauthier,  formerly  cook  to  the  bookseller's 


"I    BEG    YOUR    PARDON    A    THOUSAND    TIMES,    MONSIEUR.' 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY.  137 

store  kept  by  Barbet,  one  of  the  hardest  money-lenders  on 
short  terms  in  the  neighborhood,  stole  out  at  the  heels  of  her 
two  lodgers,  so  as  to  watch  them  from  a  distance  and  rejoin 
Godefroid  as  soon  as  he  and  Monsieur  Bernard  should  part 
company. 

Monsieur  Bernard  was  walking  slowly,  like  a  man  in  two 
minds,  or  a  debtor  seeking  for  excuses  to  give  to  a  creditor 
who  has  left  him  to  take  proceedings. 

Godefroid,  in  front  of  this  unknown  neighbor,  turned  round 
to  look  at  him  under  pretense  of  looking  about.  And  it  was 
not  till  they  had  reached  the  broad  walk  in  the  Luxembourg 
Gardens  that  Monsieur  Bernard  came  up  with  Godefroid  and 
addressed  him. 

"I  beg  your  pardon  a  thousand  times,  monsieur,"  said  he, 
bowing  to  Godefroid,  who  returned  the  bow,  "  for  stopping 
you,  when  I  have  not  the  honor  of  knowing  you ;  but  is  it 
your  firm  intention  to  live  in  the  horrible  house  where  I  am 
lodging?" 

"  Indeed,  monsieur " 

"I  know,"  said  the  old  man,  interrupting  Godefroid  with 
a  commanding  air,  "that  you  have  a  right  to  ask  me  what 
concern  of  mine  it  is  to  meddle  in  your  affairs,  to  question 
you.  Listen,  monsieur ;  you  are  young,  and  I  am  very  old ; 
I  am  older  than  my  years,  and  they  are  sixty-six — I  might  be 
taken  for  eighty  !  Age  and  misfortune  justify  many  things, 
since  the  law  exempts  septuagenarians  from  various  public 
duties;  still,  I  do  not  dwell  on  the  privileges  bestowed  by 
white  hairs;  it  is  you  for  whom  I  am  concerned.  Do  you 
know  that  the  part  of  the  town  in  which  you  think  of  living 
is  a  desert  by  eight  in  the  evening,  and  full  of  dangers,  of 
which  being  robbed  is  the  least?  Have  you  noticed  the  wide 
plots  where  there  are  no  houses,  the  waste  ground  and  market 
gardens?  You  will,  perhaps,  retort  that  I  live  there;  but  I, 
monsieur,  am  never  out  of  doors  after  six  in  the  evening.  Or 


138  THE  SEAM*  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

you  will  say  that  two  young  men  are  lodgers  on  the  third 
floor,  above  the  rooms  you  propose  to  take ;  but,  monsieur, 
those  two  unhappy  writers  are  the  victims  of  writs  out  against 
them ;  they  are  pursued  by  their  creditors ;  they  are  in  hiding, 
and  go  out  all  day  to  come  in  at  midnight;  and  as  they 
always  keep  together  and  carry  arms,  they  have  no  fear  of 
being  robbed.  I  myself  obtained  permission  from  the  chief 
of  the  police  for  them  each  to  carry  a  weapon." 

"Indeed,  monsieur,"  said  Godefroid,  "I  have  no  fear  of 
robbers,  for  the  same  reasons  as  leave  these  gentlemen  invul- 
nerable, and  so  great  a  contempt  for  life,  that  if  I  should  be 
murdered  by  mistake,  I  should  bless  the  assassin." 

"And  yet  you  do  not  look  so  very  wretched,"  said  the  old 
man,  who  was  studying  Godefroid. 

"  I  have  barely  enough  to  live  on,  to  give  me  bread,  and  I 
chose  that  part  of  the  town  for  the  sake  of  the  quiet  that  reigns 
there.  But  may  I  ask,  monsieur,  what  object  you  can  have  in 
keeping  me  out  of  the  house?  " 

The  old  man  hesitated ;  he  saw  Madame  Vauthier  in  pur- 
suit. Godefroid,  who  was  examining  him  attentively,  was 
surprised  at  the  excessive  emaciation  to  which  grief,  and  per- 
haps hunger,  or  perhaps  hard  work,  had  reduced  him ;  there 
were  traces  of  all  these  causes  of  weakness  on  the  face  where 
the  withered  skin  looked  dried  on  to  the  bones,  as  if  it  had 
been  exposed  to  the  African  sun.  The  forehead,  which  was 
high  and  threatening,  rose  in  a  dome  above  a  pair  of  steel-blue 
eyes,  cold,  hard,  shrewd,  and  piercing  as  those  of  a  savage, 
and  set  in  deep,  dark,  and  very  wrinkled  circles,  like  a  bruise 
round  each.  A  large,  long,  thin  nose,  and  the  upward  curve 
of  the  chin,  gave  the  old  man  a  marked  likeness  to  the  familiar 
features  of  Don  Quixote ;  but  this  was  a  sinister  Don  Quixote, 
a  man  of  no  delusions,  a  terrible  Don  Quixote. 

The  old  man,  in  spite  of  his  look  of  severity,  betrayed 
nevertheless  the  timidity  and  weakness  that  poverty  gives  to 
the  unfortunate.  And  these  two  feelings  seemed  to  have 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY.  139 

graven  lives  of  ruin  on  a  face  so  strongly  framed  that  the 
destroying  pickaxe  of  misery  had  rough-hewn  it.  The  mouth 
was  expressive  and  grave.  Don  Quixote  was  crossed  with  the 
President  de  Montesquieu. 

The  man's  dress  was  of  black  cloth  throughout,  but  utterly 
threadbare;  the  coat,  old-fashioned  in  cut,  and  the  trousers 
showed  many  badly-executed  patches.  The  buttons  had  been 
recently  renewed.  The  coat  was  fastened  up  to  the  chin,  show- 
ing no  linen,  and  a  rusty-black  stock  covered  the  absence  of 
a  collar.  These  black  clothes,  worn  for  many  years,  reeked 
of  penury.  But  the  mysterious  old  man's  air  of  dignity,  his 
gait,  the  mind  that  dwelt  behind  that  brow  and  lighted  up 
those  eyes,  seemed  irreconcilable  with  poverty.  An  observer 
would  have  found  it  hard  to  class  this  Parisian. 

Monsieur  Bernard  was  so  absent-minded  that  he  might  have 
been  taken  for  a  professor  of  the  college-quarter,  a  learned 
man  lost  in  jealous  and  overbearing  meditation  ;  and  Gode- 
froid  was  filled  with  excessive  interest  and  a  degree  of  curiosity 
to  which  his  beneficent  mission  added  a  spur. 

"  Monsieur,"  said  the  old  man  presently,  "  if  I  were  assured 
that  all  you  seek  is  silence  and  privacy,  I  would  say:  'Come 
and  live  near  me.'  Take  the  rooms,"  he  went  on  in  a  louder 
voice,  so  that  the  widow  might  hear  him,  as  she  passed  them, 
listening  to  what  they  were  saying.  "  I  am  a  father,  monsieur, 
I  have  no  one  belonging  to  me  in  the  world  but  my  daughter 
and  her  son  to  help  me  to  endure  the  miseries  of  life ;  but  my 
daughter  needs  silence  and  perfect  quiet.  Every  one  who  has 
hitherto  come  to  take  the  rooms  you  wish  to  lodge  in  has 
yielded  to  the  reasoning  and  the  entreaties  of  a  heartbroken 
father;  they  did  not  care  in  which  street  they  settled  of  so 
desolate  a  part  of  the  town,  where  cheap  lodgings  are  plenty 
and  boarding-houses  at  very  low  rates.  But  you,  I  see,  are 
very  much  bent  on  it,  and  I  can  only  beg  you,  monsieur,  not 
to  deceive  me;  for  if  you  should,  I  can  but  leave  and  settle 
beyond  the  barrier.  And,  in  the  first  place,  a  removal  might 


140  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY. 

cost  my  daughter  her  life,"  he  said  in  a  broken  voice,  "and 
then,  who  knows  whether  the  doctors  who  come  to  attend  her 
—  for  the  love  of  God  —  would  come  outside  the  gates?  -  " 

If  the  man  could  have  shed  tears,  they  would  have  run  down 
his  cheeks  as  he  spoke  these  last  words  ;  but  there  were  tears 
in  his  voice,  to  use  a  phrase  that  has  become  commonplace, 
and  he  covered  his  brow  with  a  hand  that  was  mere  bone  and 
sinew. 

"  What,  then,  is  the  matter  with  madame,  your  daughter?" 
asked  Godefroid  in  a  voice  of  ingratiating  sympathy. 

"A  terrible  disease  to  which  the  doctors  give  a  variety  of 
names  —  or  rather,  which  has  no  name.  All  my  fortune  went, 


But  he  checked  himself,  and  said,  with  one  of  those  move- 
ments peculiar  to  the  unfortunate  — 

"The  little  money  I  had  —  for  in  1830,  dismissed  from  a 
high  position,  I  found  myself  without  an  income  —  in  short, 
everything  I  had  was  soon  eaten  up  by  my  daughter,  who  had 
already  ruined  her  mother  and  her  husband's  family.  At  the 
present  time  the  pension  I  draw  hardly  suffices  to  pay  for 
necessaries  in  the  state  in  which  my  poor  saintly  daughter  now 
is.  She  has  exhausted  all  my  power  to  weep. 

"I  have  endured  every  torment,  monsieur;  I  must  be  of 
granite  still  to  live  —  or  rather,  God  preserves  the  father  that 
his  child  may  still  have  a  nurse  or  a  providence,  for  her 
mother  died  of  exhaustion. 

"Ay,  young  man,  you  have  come  at  a  moment  when  this 
old  tree  that  has  never  bent  is  feeling  the  axe  of  suffering, 
sharpened  by  poverty,  cutting  at  its  heart.  And  I,  who  have 
never  complained  to  anybody,  will  tell  you  about  this  long  ill- 
ness to  keep  you  from  coming  to  the  house  —  or,  if  you  insist, 
to  show  you  how  necessary  it  is  that  our  quiet  should  not  be 
disturbed. 

"At  this  moment,  monsieur,  day  and  night,  my  daughter 
barks  like  a  dog." 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY.  141 

"  She  is  mad,  then  ?  "  said  Godefroid. 

"She  is  in  her  right  mind,  and  a  perfect  saint,"  replied 
Monsieur  Bernard.  "  You  will  think  that  I  am  mad  when  I 
have  told  you  all.  My  only  daughter  is  the  child  of  a  mother 
who  enjoyed  excellent  health.  I  never  in  my  life  loved  but 
one  woman — she  was  my  wife.  I  chose  her  myself,  and  mar- 
ried for  love  the  daughter  of  one  of  the  bravest  colonels  in  the 
Imperial  Guard,  a  Pole  formerly  on  the  Emperor's  staff,  the 
gallant  General  Tarlovski.  In  the  place  I  held  strict  morality 
was  indispensable ;  but  my  heart  is  not  adapted  to  accommo- 
date many  fancies — I  loved  my  wife  faithfully,  and  she  de- 
served it.  And  I  am  as  constant  as  a  father  as  I  was  as  a 
husband  ;  I  can  say  no  more. 

"My  daughter  never  left  her  mother's  care ;  no  girl  ever 
led  a  chaster  or  more  Christian  life  than  my  dear  child.  She 
was  more  than  pretty — lovely ;  and  her  husband,  a  young  man 
of  whose  character  I  was  certain,  for  he  was  the  son  of  an  old 
friend,  a  president  of  the  supreme  court,  I  am  sure  was  in  no 
way  contributory  to  his  wife's  malady." 

Monsieur  Bernard  and  Godefroid  involuntarily  stood  still  a 
moment  looking  at  each  other. 

"  Marriage,  as  you  know,  often  changes  a  woman's  consti- 
tution," the  old  man  went  on.  "My  daughter's  first  child 
was  safely  brought  into  the  world,  a  son — my  grandson,  who 
lives  with  us,  and  who  is  the  only  descendant  of  either  of  the 
united  families.  The  second  time  my  daughter  was  expecting 
an  infant  she  had  such  singular  symptoms  that  the  physicians, 
all  puzzled,  could  only  ascribe  them  to  the  singular  conditions 
which  sometimes  occur  in  such  cases,  and  which  are  recorded 
in  the  memoirs  of  medical  science.  The  infant  was  born 
dead,  literally  strangled  by  internal  convulsions.  Thus  began 
the  illness — temporary  conditions  had  nothing  to  do  with  it. 
Perhaps  you  are  a  medical  student  ?  "  Godefroid  replied  with 
a  nod,  which  might  be  either  negative  or  affirmative. 

"After   this  disastrous  child-bearing,"  Monsieur   Bernard 


142  THE   SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

went  on — "  a  scene  that  made  so  terrible  an  impression  on  my 
son-in-law  that  it  laid  the  foundations  of  the  decline  of  which 
he  died — my  daughter,  at  the  end  of  two  or  three  months, 
complained  of  general  debility,  more  particularly  affecting  her 
feet,  which  felt,  as  she  described  it,  as  if  they  were  made  of 
cotton.  This  weakness  became  paralysis,  but  what  a  strange 
form  of  paralysis  !  You  may  bend  my  daughter's  feet  under 
her,  twist  them  round,  and  she  feels  nothing.  The  limbs  are 
there,  but  they  seem  to  have  no  blood,  no  flesh,  no  bones. 
This  condition,  which  is  unlike  any  recognized  disease,  has 
attacked  her  arms  and  hands ;  it  is  supposed  to  be  connected 
with  her  spine.  Doctors  and  suggested  remedies  have  only 
made  her  worse ;  my  poor  child  cannot  move  without  dislo- 
cating her  hips,  shoulders,  or  wrists.  We  have  had  for  a  long 
time  an  excellent  surgeon,  almost  in  the  house,  who  makes  it 
his  care,  with  the  help  of  a  doctor — or  doctors,  for  several 
have  seen  her  out  of  curiosity — to  replace  the  joints — would 
you  believe  me,  monsieur  ? — as  often  as  three  or  four  times  a 
day. 

"Ah  !  I  was  forgetting  to  tell  you — for  this  illness  has  so 
many  forms — that  during  the  early  weak  stage,  before  paralysis 
supervened,  my  daughter  was  liable  to  the  most  extraordinary 
attacks  of  catalepsy.  You  know  what  catalepsy  is.  She  would 
lie  with  her  eyes  open  and  staring,  sometimes  in  the  attitude 
in  which  the  fit  seized  her.  She  has  had  the  most  incredible 
forms  of  this  affection,  even  attacks  of  tetanus. 

"  This  phase  of  the  disease  suggested  to  me  the  application 
of  mesmerism  as  a  cure  when  I  saw  her  so  strangely  paralyzed. 
Then,  monsieur,  my  daughter  became  miraculously  clairvoy- 
ante,  her  mind  was  subject  to  every  marvel  of  somnambulism, 
as  her  body  is  to  every  form  of  disease." 

Godefroid  was  indeed  wondering  whether  the  old  man  were 
quite  sane. 

"  For  my  part,"  he  went  on,  heedless  of  the  expression  of 
Godefroid's  eyes,  "  I,  brought  up  on  Voltaire,  Diderot,  and 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  143 

Helvetius,  am  a  son  of  the  eighteenth  century,  of  the  Revolu- 
tion ;  and  I  laughed  to  scorn  all  the  records  handed  down 
from  antiquity  and  middle  ages  of  persons  possessed — yes, 
and  yet  possession  is  the  only  explanation  of  the  state  my 
child  is  in.  Even  in  her  mesmeric  sleep  she  has  never  been 
able  to  reveal  the  cause  of  her  sufferings ;  she  could  not  see 
it ;  and  the  methods  of  treatment  suggested  by  her  under 
those  conditions,  though  carefully  followed,  have  had  no  good 
result.  For  instance,  she  said  she  must  be  wrapped  in  a 
freshly  killed  pig;  then  she  was  to  have  points  of  highly  mag- 
netized red-hot  iron  applied  to  her  legs;  to  have  melted  sealing- 
wax  on  her  spine.  And  what  a  wreck  she  became ;  her  teeth 
fell  out ;  she  became  deaf,  and  then  dumb ;  and  suddenly, 
after  six  months  of  perfect  deafness  and  silence,  she  recovered 
hearing  and  speech.  She  occasionally  recovers  the  use  of  her 
hands  as  unexpectedly  as  she  loses  it,  but  for  seven  years  she 
has  never  known  the  use  of  her  feet. 

"She  has  sometimes  had  well-defined  and  characteristic 
attacks  of  hydrophobia.  Not  only  may  the  sight  or  sound  of 
water,  of  a  glass  or  a  cup,  rouse  her  to  frenzy,  but  she  barks 
like  a  dog,  a  melancholy  bark,  or  howls,  as  dogs  do  at  the 
sound  of  an  organ. 

"She  has  several  times  seemed  to  be  dying,  and  has  re- 
ceived the  last  sacraments,  and  then  come  back  to  life  again 
to  suffer  with  full  understanding  and  clearness  of  mind,  for 
her  faculties  of  heart  and  brain  remain  unimpaired.  Though 
she  is  alive,  she  has  caused  the  death  of  her  husband  and  her 
mother,  who  could  not  stand  such  repeated  trials.  Alas  ! 
Nor  is  this  all.  Every  function  of  nature  is  perverted ;  only 
a  medical  man  could  give  you  a  complete  account  of  the 
strange  condition  of  every  organ. 

"  In  this  state  did  I  bring  her  to  Paris  from  the  country  in 
1829  ;  for  the  famous  physicians  to  whom  I  described  the 
case — Desplein,  Bianchon,  and  Haudry — believed  I  was  trying 
to  impose  upon  them.  At  that  time  magnetism  was  stoutly 


144  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY. 

denied  by  the  schools.  Without  throwing  any  doubt  on  the 
provincial  doctors'  good  faith  or  mine,  they  thought  there  was 
some  inaccuracy,  or,  if  you  like,  some  exaggeration,  such  as 
is  common  enough  in  families  or  in  the  sufferers  themselves. 
But  they  have  been  obliged  to  change  their  views ;  to  these 
phenomena,  indeed,  it  is  due  that  nervous  diseases  have  of 
late  years  been  made  the  subject  of  investigation,  for  this 
strange  case  is  now  classed  as  nervous.  The  last  consultation 
held  by  these  gentlemen  led  them  to  give  up  all  medicine  ; 
they  decided  that  nature  must  be  studied,  but  left  to  itself; 
and  since  then  I  have  had  but  one  doctor — the  doctor  who 
attends  the  poor  of  this  district.  In  fact,  all  that  can  be 
done  is  done  to  alleviate  her  sufferings,  since  their  causes 
remain  unknown." 

The  old  man  paused,  as  if  this  terrible  confession  were  too 
much  for  him. 

"For  five  years  now  my  daughter  has  lived  through  alterna- 
tions of  amendment  and  relapse;  but  no  new  symptoms  have 
appeared.  She  suffers  more  or  less  from  the  various  forms  of 
nervous  attack  which  I  have  briefly  described  to  you ;  but  the 
paralysis  of  the  legs  and  organic  disturbances  are  constant. 
Our  narrow  means — increasingly  narrow — compelled  us  to 
move  from  the  rooms  I  took  in  1829  in  ihe  Rue  du  Roule; 
and  as  my  daughter  cannot  bear  being  moved,  and  I  nearly 
lost  her  twice,  first  in  coming  to  Paris,  and  then  in  moving 
here  from  the  Beaujon  side,  I  took  the  lodging  in  which  we 
now  are,  foreseeing  the  disasters  which  ere  long  overtook  us  ; 
for,  after  thirty  years'  service,  I  was  kept  waiting  for  my  pen- 
sion till  1833.  I  have  drawn  it  only  for  six  months,  and  the 
new  government  has  crowned  its  severities  by  granting  me 
only  the  minimum." 

Godefroid  expressed  such  surprise  as  seemed  to  demand 
entire  confidence,  and  so  the  old  man  understood  it,  for  he 
went  on  at  once,  not  without  a  reproachful  glance  toward 
heaven. 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY.  145 

"  I  am  one  of  the  thousand  victims  to  political  reaction. 
I  carefully  hide  a  name  that  is  obnoxious  to  revenge ;  and  if 
the  lessons  of  experience  ever  avail  from  one  generation  to  the 
next,  remember,  young  man,  never  to  lend  yourself  to  the 
severity  of  any  side  in  politics.  Not  that  I  repent  of  having 
done  my  duty,  my  conscience  is  at  peace  ;  but  the  powers  of 
to-day  have  ceased  to  have  that  sense  of  common  responsibility 
which  binds  governments  together,  however  dissimilar;  when 
zeal  meets  with  a  reward,  it  is  the  result  of  transient  fear. 
The  instrument,  having  served  its  purpose,  is,  sooner  or  later, 
completely  forgotten.  In  me  you  see  one  of  the  stanchest 
supporters  of  the  throne  under  the  elder  branch  of  the  Bour- 
bons, as  I  was,  too,  of  the  Imperial  rule,  and  I  am  a  beggar ! 
As  I  am  too  proud  to  ask  charity,  no  one  will  ever  guess  that 
I  am  suffering  intolerable  ills. 

"  Five  days  since,  monsieur,  the  district  medical  officer 
who  attends  my  daughter,  or  who  watches  the  case,  told  me 
that  he  had  no  hope  of  curing  a  disease  of  which  the  symptoms 
vary  every  fortnight.  His  view  is  that  neurotic  patients  are 
the  despair  of  the  faculty  because  the  causes  lie  in  a  system 
that  defies  investigation.  He  advises  me  to  call  in  a  certain 
Jewish  doctor,  who  is  spoken  of  as  a  quack ;  but  at  the  same 
time  he  remarked  that  he  was  a  foreigner,  a  Polish  refugee, 
and  that  physicians  are  extremely  jealous  of  certain  extra- 
ordinary cures  that  have  been  much  talked  of;  some  people 
regard  him  as  very  learned  and  skillful. 

"  But  he  is  exacting  and  suspicious ;  he  selects  his  patients, 
and  will  not  waste  time ;  and  then  he  is — a  communist.  His 
name  is  Halpersohn.  My  grandson  has  called  on  him  twice, 
but  in  vain ;  for  he  has  not  yet  been  to  the  house,  and  I 
understand  why." 

"  Why  ?  "  asked  Godefroid. 

"  Oh,  my  grandson,  who  is  sixteen,  is  worse  clothed  even 
than  I  am  ;  and,  will  you  believe  me,  monsieur,  I  dare  not 
show  myself  to  this  doctor;  my  dress  is  too  ill-suited 
10 


146  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY. 

to  what  is  expected  in  a  man  of  my  age,  and  of  some  dig- 
nity, too.  If  he  should  see  the  grandfather  so  destitute  as 
I  am  when  the  grandson  has  shown  himself  in  the  same  sorry 
plight,  would  he  devote  due  care  to  my  daughter  ?  He  would 
treat  her  as  paupers  are  always  treated.  And  you  must 
remember,  monsieur,  that  I  love  my  daughter  for  the  grief  she 
has  caused  me,  as  of  old  I  loved  her  for  the  care  she  lavished 
upon  me.  She  has  become  a  perfect  angel.  Alas  !  She  is 
now  no  more  than  a  soul — a  soul  that  beams  on  her  son  and 
on  me  ;  her  body  is  no  more,  for  she  has  triumphed  over  pain. 

"  Imagine  what  a  spectacle  for  a  father  !  My  daughter's 
world  is  her  bedroom.  She  must  have  flowers  which  she 
loves ;  she  reads  a  great  deal ;  and  when  she  has  the  use  of 
her  hands,  she  works  like  a  fairy.  She  knows  nothing  of  the 
misery  in  which  we  live.  Our  life  is  such  a  strange  one,  that 
we  can  admit  no  one  to  our  rooms.  Do  you  understand  me, 
monsieur?  Do  you  see  that  a  neighbor  is  intolerable?  I 
should  have  to  ask  so  much  of  him  that  I  should  be  under  the 
greatest  obligations — and  I  could  never  discharge  them.  In 
the  first  place,  I  have  no  time  for  anything  :  I  am  educating 
my  grandson,  and  I  work  so  hard,  monsieur — so  hard,  that  I 
never  sleep  for  more  than  three  or  four  hours  at  night." 

"Monsieur,"  said  Godefroid,  interrupting  the  old  man,  to 
whom  he  had  listened  attentively  while  watching  him  with 
grieved  attention,  "I  will  be  your  neighbor,  and  I  will  help 
you " 

The  old  gentleman  drew  himself  up  with  pride,  indeed, 
with  impatience,  for  he  did  not  believe  in  any  good  thing  in 
man. 

"  I  will  help  you,"  repeated  Godefroid,  taking  the  old 
man's  hands  and  pressing  them  warmly,  "  in  such  ways  as  I 
can.  Listen  to  me.  What  do  you  intend  to  make  of  your 
grandson  ?" 

"He  is  soon  to  begin  studying  the  law;  I  mean  him  to  be 
an  advocate." 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY.  147 

"  Then  your  grandson  will  cost  you  six  hundred  francs  a 
year,  and  you " 

The  old  man  said  nothing. 

"I  have  nothing,"  said  Godefroid  after  a  pause,  "but  I 
have  influence ;  I  will  get  at  the  Jewish  doctor ;  and  if  your 
daughter  is  curable,  she  shall  be  cured.  We  will  find  means 
of  paying  this  Halpersohn." 

"  Oh,  if  my  daughter  were  cured,  I  would  make  the  sacrifice 
that  can  be  made  but  once ;  I  would  give  up  what  I  am  saving 
for  a  rainy  day."* 

"You  may  keep  that  too." 

"Ah  !  what  a  thing  it  is  to  be  young !  "  said  the  old  man, 
shaking  his  head.  "  Good-by,  monsieur,  or  rather  au  revoir. 
The  library  is  open,  and  as  I  have  sold  all  my  books,  I  have 
to  go  there  every  day  for  my  work. 

"  I  am  grateful  to  you  for  the  kind  feeling  you  have  shown  ; 
but  we  must  see  whether  you  can  show  me  such  consideration 
as  I  am  obliged  to  require  of  a  neighbor.  That  is  all  I  ask  of 
you " 

"Yes,  monsieur,  pray  accept  me  as  your  neighbor;  for 
Barbet,  as  you  know,  is  not  the  man  to  put  up  long  with  empty 
rooms,  and  you  might  meet  with  a  worse  companion  in  misery 
than  I.  I  do  not  ask  you  to  believe  in  me,  only  to  allow  me 
to  be  of  use  to  you." 

"And  what  interest  can  you  have  in  serving  me?"  cried  the 
old  man,  as  he  was  about  to  go  down  the  steps  of  the  cloister 
of  the  Carthusians,  through  which  there  was  at  that  time  a 
passage  from  the  broad  walk  of  the  Luxembourg  to  the  Rue 
d'Enfer. 

"Have  you  never,  in  the  course  of  your  career,  obliged 
anybody  ? ' ' 

The  old  man  looked  at  Godefroid  with  knit  brows,  his  eyes 
vague  with  reminiscence,  like  a  man  searching  through  the 
record  of  his  life  for  an  action  for  which  he  might  deserve  such 
*  Lit.  trans.:  I  will  sell  the  pear  I  have  kept  for  a  thirsty  day. 


148  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTOR  Y. 

rare  gratitude ;  then  he  coldly  turned  away,  after  bowing  with 
evident  suspicion. 

"  Come !  for  a  first  meeting  he  was  not  particularly  dis- 
tant," said  the  disciple  to  himself. 

Godefroid  went  at  once  to  the  Rue  d'Enfer,  the  address 
given  him  by  Monsieur  Alain,  and  found  Doctor  Berton  at 
home — a  stern,  cold  man,  who  surprised  him  greatly  by  assur- 
ing him  that  the  details  given  by  Monsieur  Bernard  of  his 
daughter's  illness  were  absolutely  correct ;  he  then  went  in 
search  of  Doctor  Halpersohn,  whose  address  he  obtained  from 
Monsieur  Berton. 

The  Polish  physician,  since  so  famous,  at  that  time  lived  at 
Chaillot,  in  a  little  house  in  the  Rue  Marbeuf,  of  which  he  oc- 
cupied the  second  floor.  General  Roman  Zarnovicki  lived 
on  the  first  floor,  and  the  servants  of  the  two  refugees 
occupied  the  attics  of  the  little  hotel,  only  one  story  high. 
Godefroid  did  not  see  the  doctor;  he  had  been  sent  for  to 
some  distance  in  the  country  by  a  rich  patient.  But  Gode- 
froid was  almost  glad  not  to  have  met  him,  for  in  his  haste  he 
had  neglected  to  provide  himself  with  money,  and  was  obliged 
to  return  to  the  Hotel  de  la  Chanterie  to  fetch  some  from  his 
room. 

These  walks,  and  the  time  it  took  to  dine  in  a  restaurant  in 
the  Rue  de  1'Odeon,  kept  him  busy  till  the  hour  when  he  was 
to  take  possession  of  his  lodgings  on  the  Boulevard  Mont- 
Par  nasse. 

Nothing  could  be  more  wretched  than  the  furniture  provided 
by  Madame  Vauthier  for  the  two  rooms.  It  seemed  as  though 
the  woman  was  in  the  habit  of  letting  rooms  not  to  be  in- 
habited. The  bed,  the  chairs,  the  tables,  the  drawers,  the 
desk,  the  curtains,  had  all  evidently  been  purchased  at  sales 
under  compulsion  of  the  law,  where  the  money-lender  had 
kept  them  on  account,  no  cash  value  being  obtainable — a  not 
infrequent  case. 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  149 

Madame  Vauthier,  her  arms  akimbo,  expected  thanks,  and 
she  took  Godefroid's  smile  for  one  of  surprise. 

"Oh,  yes,  I  have  given  you  the  best  of  everything,  my 
dear  Monsieur  Godefroid,"  said  she  with  an  air  of  triumph. 

"  Look  what  handsome  silk  curtains,  and  a  mahogany  bed- 
stead that  is  not  at  all  worm-eaten.  It  belonged  to  the  Prince 
de  Wissembourg,  and  was  bought  out  of  his  mansion.  When 
he  left  the  Rue  Louis-le-Grand,  in  1809,  I  was  scullery-maid 
in  his  kitchen,  and  from  there  I  went  to  live  with  my  land- 
lord  " 

Godefroid  checked  this  confidential  flow  by  paying  his 
month's  lodging  in  advance,  and  at  the  same  time  gave  Mad- 
ame Vauthier  six  francs,  also  in  advance,  for  arranging  and 
cleaning  his  rooms.  At  this  moment  he  heard  a  bark;  and 
if  he  had  not  been  forewarned,  he  might  have  thought  that 
his  neighbor  kept  a  dog  in  his  lodgings. 

"  Does  that  dog  bark  at  night  ?  "  he  asked. 

"Oh,  be  easy,  sir,  and  have  patience;  there  will  not  be 
above  a  week  of  it.  Monsieur  Bernard  will  not  be  able  to 
pay  his  rent,  and  he  will  be  turned  out.  Still,  they  are  queer 
folk,  I  must  say !  I  never  saw  their  dog.  For  months  that 
dog — for  months,  did  I  say?  for  six  months  at  a  time  you  will 
never  hear  that  dog,  and  you  might  think  they  didn't  keep 
one.  The  creature  never  comes  out  of  madame's  room. 
There  is  a  lady  who  is  very  bad ;  she  has  never  been  out  of 
her  bed  since  they  carried  her  in.  Old  Monsieur  Bernard 
works  very  hard,  and  the  son  too,  who  is  a  day  pupil  at  the 
College  Louis-le-Grand,  where  he  is  in  the  top  class  for  phil- 
osophy, and  he  is  but  sixteen.  A  bright  chap  that !  but  that 
little  beggar  works  like  a  good  'un. 

"  You  will  hear  them  presently  moving  the  flower-pots  in 
the  lady's  room — for  they  eat  nothing  but  dry  bread,  the  old 
man  and  his  grandson,  but  they  buy  flowers  and  nice  things 
for  her.  She  must  be  very  bad,  poor  thing,  never  to  have 
stirred  out  since  she  came ;  and  if  you  take  Monsieur  Berton's 


150  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

word — he  is  the  doctor  who  comes  to  see  her — she  never  will 
go  out  but  feet  foremost." 

"And  what  is  this  Monsieur  Bernard?" 

"A  very  learned  man,  so  they  say;  for  he  writes  and  goes 
to  work  in  the  public  libraries,  and  the  master  lends  him 
money  on  account  of  what  he  writes." 

"The  master— who?" 

"The  landlord,  Monsieur  Barbet,  the  old  bookseller;  he 
has  been  in  business  this  sixteen  years.  He  is  a  man  from 
Normandy,  who  once  sold  salad  in  the  streets,  and  who  started 
as  a  dealer  in  old  books  on  the  quay,  in  1818;  then  he  set  up 
a  little  store,  and  now  he  is  very  rich.  He  is  a  sort  of  old 
Jew  who  runs  six-and-thirty  businesses  at  once,  for  he  was  a 
kind  of  partner  with  the  Italian  who  built  this  great  barn  to 
keep  silkworms  in " 

*fAnd  so  the  house  is  a  place  of  refuge  for  authors  in 
trouble?"  said  Godefroid. 

"Are  you  so  unlucky  as  to  be  one?"  asked  the  widow 
Vauthier. 

"  I  am  only  a  beginner,"  said  Godefroid. 

"  Oh,  my  good  gentleman,  for  all  the  ill  I  wish  you,  never 
get  any  further  !  A  newspaper  man,  now — I  won't  say " 

Godefroid  could  not  help  laughing,  and  he  bid  the  woman 
good-night — a  cook  unconsciously  representing  the  whole 
middle-class. 

As  he  went  to  bed  in  the  wretched  room,  floored  with  bricks 
that  had  not  even  been  colored,  and  hung  with  paper  at  seven 
sous  the  piece,  Godefroid  not  only  regretted  his  little  lodging 
in  the  Rue  Chanoinesse,  but  more  especially  the  society  of 
Madame  de  la  Chanterie.  There  was  a  great  void  in  his  soul. 
He  had  already  acquired  certain  habits  of  mind,  and  he  could 
not  remember  ever  having  felt  such  keen  regrets  for  anything 
in  his  previous  life.  This  comparison,  brief  as  it  was,  made 
a  great  impression  on  his  mind  ;  he  understood  that  no  life 
he  could  lead  could  compare  with  that  he  was  about  to  em- 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY.  151 

brace,  and  his  determination  to  follow  in  the  steps  of  good 
Father  Alain  was  thenceforth  unchangeable.  If  he  had  not 
the  vocation,  he  had  the  will. 

Next  morning,  Godefroid,  whose  new  way  of  life  accus- 
tomed him  to  rising  very  early,  saw,  out  of  his  window,  a 
youth  of  about  seventeen,  wearing  a  blouse,  and  coming  in 
evidently  from  a  public  fountain,  carrying  in  each  hand  a 
pitcher  full  of  water.  The  lad's  face,  not  knowing  that  any 
one  could  see  him,  betrayed  his  thoughts ;  and  never  had 
Godefroid  seen  one  more  guileless  and  more  sad.  The  charm 
of  youth  was  depressed  by  misery,  study,  and  great  physical 
fatigue.  Monsieur  Bernard's  grandson  was  remarkable  for  an 
excessively  white  skin,  in  strong  contrast  to  very  dark-brown 
hair.  He  made  three  expeditions ;  and  the  third  time  he  saw 
a  load  of  wood  being  delivered  which  Godefroid  had  ordered 
the  night  before ;  for  the  winter,  though  late,  of  1838  was 
beginning  to  be  felt,  and  there  had  been  a  slight  fall  of  snow 
in  the  night. 

Nepomucene,  who  had  just  begun  his  day's  work  by  fetching 
this  wood,  on  which  Madame  Vauthier  had  already  levied 
heavy  toll,  stood  talking  to  the  youth  while  waiting  till  the 
sawyer  had  cut  up  the  logs  for  him  to  take  indoors.  It  was 
very  evident  that  the  sight  of  this  wood,  and  of  the  ominous 
gray  sky,  had  reminded  the  lad  of  the  desirability  of  laying 
in  some  fuel.  And  then  suddenly,  as  if  reproaching  himself 
for  waste  of  time,  he  took  up  the  pitchers  and  hurried  into 
the  house.  It  was  indeed  half-past  seven  ;  and  as  he  heard 
the  quarters  strike  by  the  clock  at  the  convent  of  the  Visita- 
tion, he  reflected  that  he  had  to  be  at  the  College  Louis-le- 
Grand  by  half-past  eight. 

At  the  moment  when  the  young  man  went  in,  Godefroid 
opened  his  door  to  Madame  Vauthier,  who  was  bringing  up 
some  live  charcoal  to  her  new  lodger  ;  so  it  happened  that  he 
witnessed  a  scene  that  took  place  on  the  landing.  A  gardener 


152  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY. 

living  in  the  neighborhood,  after  ringing  several  times  at 
Monsieur  Bernard's  door  without  arousing  anybody,  for  the 
bell  was  muffled  in  paper,  had  a  rough  dispute  with  the  youth, 
insisting  on  the  money  due  for  the  hire  of  plants  which  he 
had  supplied.  As  the  creditor  raised  his  voice,  Monsieur  Ber- 
nard came  out. 

"Auguste,"  said  he  to  his  grandson,  "get  dressed.  It  is 
time  to  be  off." 

He  himself  took  the  pitchers  and  carried  them  into  the 
anteroom  of  his  apartment,  where  Godefroid  could  see  stands 
filled  with  flowers ;  then  he  closed  the  door  and  came 
outside  to  talk  to  the  nurseryman.  Godefroid's  door  was 
ajar,  for  Nepomucene  was  passing  in  and  out  and  piling  up 
the  logs  in  the  second  room.  The  gardener  had  become 
silent  when  Monsieur  Bernard  appeared,  wrapped  in  a  purple 
silk  dressing-gown,  buttoned  to  the  chin,  and  looking  really 
imposing. 

"You  might  ask  for  the  money  we  owe  you  without  shout- 
ing," said  the  gentleman. 

"  Be  just,  my  dear  sir,"  replied  the  gardener.  "  You  were 
to  pay  me  week  by  week,  and  now,  for  three  months — ten 
weeks — I  have  had  no  money,  and  you  owe  me  a  hundred 
and  twenty  francs.  We  are  accustomed  to  hire  out  our  plants 
to  rich  people,  who  give  us  our  money  as  soon  as  we  ask  for 
it,  and  I  have  called  here  five  times.  We  have  our  rent  to 
pay  and  our  workmen,  and  I  am  no  richer  than  you  are.  My 
wife,  who  used  to  supply  you  with  milk  and  eggs,  will  not 
call  this  morning  either ;  you  owe  her  thirty  francs,  and  she 
would  rather  not  come  at  all  than  come  to  nag,  for  she  has  a 
good  heart,  has  my  wife  !  -If  I  listened  to  her.  trade  would 
never  pay.  And  that  is  why  I  came,  you  understand,  for  that 
is  not  my  way  of  looking  at  things,  you  see " 

Just  then  out  came  Auguste,  dressed  in  a  miserable  green 
cloth  coat,  and  trousers  of  the  same,  a  black  cravat,  and 
shabby  boots.  These  clothes,  though  brushed  with  care,  re- 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTOR  K  J53 

vealed  the  very  last  extremity  of  poverty,  for  they  were  too 
short  and  too  tight,  so  that  they  looked  as  if  the  least  move- 
ment on  the  lad's  part  would  split  them.  The  whitened 
seams,  the  dog's-eared  corners,  the  worn-out  button-holes,  in 
spite  of  mending,  betrayed  to  the  least  practiced  eye  the 
stigma  of  poverty.  This  garb  contrasted  painfully  with  the 
youthfulness  of  the  wearer,  who  went  off  eating  a  piece  of 
stale  bread,  in  which  his  fine  strong  teeth  left  their  mark. 
This  was  his  breakfast,  eaten  as  he  made  his  way  from  the 
Boulevard  du  Mont-Parnasse  to  the  Rue  Saint- Jacques,  with 
his  books  and  papers  under  his  arm,  and  on  his  head  a  cap 
far  too  small  for  his  powerful  head  and  his  mass  of  fine  dark 
hair. 

As  he  passed  his  grandfather,  they  exchanged  rapid  glances 
of  deep  dejection ;  for  he  saw  that  the  old  man  was  in  almost 
irremediable  difficulties  of  which  the  consequences  might  be 
terrible.  To  make  way  for  the  student  of  philosophy,  the 
gardener  retreated  as  far  as  Godefroid's  door;  and  at  the 
moment  when  he  reached  the  door,  Nepomucene,  with  a  load 
of  wood,  came  up  to  the  landing,  driving  the  creditor  quite 
to  the  window. 

"Monsieur  Bernard,"  exclaimed  the  widow,  "do  you 
suppose  that  Monsieur  Godefroid  took  these  rooms  for  you  to 
hold  meetings  in?  " 

"I  beg  your  pardon,  madame,''  replied  the  nurseryman, 
"  the  landing  was  crowded " 

"  I  did  not  mean  it  for  you,  Monsieur  Cartier,"  said  the 
woman. 

"  Stay  here  I  "  cried  Godefroid,  addressing  the  nurseryman. 
"And  you,  my  dear  sir,"  he  added,  turning  to  Monsieur 
Bernard,  whom  this  insolent  remark  left  unmoved,  "if  it 
suits  you  to  settle  matters  with  your  gardener  in  my  room, 
pray  come  in." 

The  old  gentleman,  stupefied  with  trouble,  gave  Godefroid 
a  stony  look,  which  conveyed  a  thousand  thanks. 


154  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY. 

"As  for  you,  my  dear  Madame  Vauthier,  do  not  be  so 
rough  to  monsieur,  who,  in  the  first  place,  is  an  old  man,  and 
to  whom  you  also  owe  your  thanks  for  having  me  as  your 
lodger." 

"  Indeed  !  "  exclaimed  the  woman. 

"Beside,  if  poor  folk  do  not  help  each  other,  who  is  to 
help  them  ?  Leave  us,  Madame  Vauthier ;  I  can  blow  up  my 
own  fire.  See  to  having  my  wood  stowed  in  your  cellar ;  I 
have  no  doubt  you  will  take  good  care  of  it." 

Madame  Vauthier  vanished  ;  for  Godefroid,  by  placing  his 
fuel  in  her  charge,  had  afforded  pasture  to  her  greed. 

"  Come  in,"  said  Godefroid,  signing  to  the  gardener,  and 
setting  two  chairs  for  the  debtor  and  creditor.  The  old  man 
talked  standing ;  the  tradesman  took  a  seat. 

"Come,  my  good  man,"  Godefroid  went  on,  "the  rich 
do  not  always  pay  so  punctually  as  you  say  they  do,  and  you 
should  not  dun  a  worthy  gentleman  for  a  few  louis.  Monsieur 
draws  his  pension  every  six  months,  and  he  cannot  give  you 
a  draft  in  anticipation  for  so  small  a  sum  ;  but  I  will  advance 
the  money  if  you  insist  on  it." 

"  Monsieur  Bernard  drew  his  pension  about  three  weeks 
since,  and  he  did  not  pay  me.  I  should  be  very  sorry  to 
annoy  him " 

"What,  and  you  have  been  supplying  him  with  flowers 
for " 

"Yes,  monsieur,  for  six  years,  and  he  has  always  paid  until 
now." 

Monsieur  Bernard,  who  was  listening  to  all  that  might  be 
going  on  in  his  own  lodgings,  and  paying  no  heed  to  this  dis- 
cussion, heard  screams  through  the  partition,  and  hurried 
away  in  alarm,  without  saying  a  word. 

"  Come,  come,  my  good  man,  bring  some  fine  flowers,  your 
best  flowers,  this  very  morning,  to  Monsieur  Bernard,  and  let 
your  wife  send  in  some  fresh  eggs  and  milk ;  I  will  pay  you 
myself  this  evening." 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY.  155 

Cartier  looked  somewhat  askance  at  Godefroid. 

"Well,  I  suppose  you  know  more  about  it  than  Madame 
Vauthier ;  she  sent  me  word  that  I  had  better  look  sharp  if  I 
meant  to  be  paid,"  said  he.  "  Neither  she  nor  I,  sir,  can  ac- 
count for  it  when  people  who  live  on  bread,  who  pick  up  odds 
and  ends  of  vegetables,  and  bits  of  carrots  and  potatoes  and 
turnips  outside  the  eating-house  doors — yes,  sir,  I  have  seen 
the  boy  filling  a  little  basket — well,  when  those  people 
spend  near  on  a  hundred  francs  a  month  on  flowers.  The 
old  man,  they  say,  has  but  three  thousand  francs  a  year  for  his 
pension " 

"At  any  rate,"  said  Godefroid,  'if  they  ruin  themselves  in 
flowers,  it  is  not  for  you  to  complain." 

"  Certainly  not,  sir,  so  long  as  I  am  paid." 

"Bring  me  your  bill." 

"Very  good,  sir,"  said  the  gardener,  with  rather  more 
respect.  "  You  hope  to  see  the  lady  they  hide  so  carefully, 
no  doubt?" 

"Come,  come,  my  good  fellow,  you  forget  yourself,"  said 
Godefroid  stiffly.  "  Go  home  and  pick  out  your  best  flowers 
to  replace  those  you  are  taking  away.  If  you  can  supply  me 
with  rich  milk  and  new-laid  eggs,  you  may  have  my  custom. 
I  will  go  this  morning  and  look  at  your  place." 

"  It  is  one  of  the  best  in  Paris,  and  I  exhibit  at  the  Luxem- 
bourg shows.  I  have  three  acres  of  garden  on  the  boulevard, 
just  behind  that  of  the  Grande-Chaumiere  "  (great  thatched 
cottage). 

"  Very  good,  Monsieur  Cartier.  You  are  richer  than  I  am, 
I  can  see.  So  have  some  consideration  for  us ;  for  who  knows 
but  that  one  day  we  may  need  each  other." 

The  nurseryman  departed,  much  puzzled  as  to  what  Gode- 
froid could  be. 

"And  time  was  when  I  was  just  like  that!"  said  Gode- 
froid to  himself,  as  he  blew  the  fire.  "  What  a  perfect  speci- 
men of  the  commonplace  citizen ;  a  gossip,  full  of  curiosity, 


156  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY. 

possessed  by  the  idea  of  equality,  but  jealous  of  other  dealers ; 
furious  at  not  knowing  why  a  poor  invalid  stays  in  her  room 
and  is  never  seen ;  secretive  as  to  his  profits,  but  vain  enough 
to  let  out  the  secret  if  he  could  crow  over  his  neighbor.  Such 
a  man  ought  to  be  lieutenant  at  least  of  his  crew.  How  easily 
and  how  often  in  every  age  does  the  scene  of  Monsieur  Di- 
manche  recur  !  Another  minute,  and  Cartier  would  have  been 
my  sworn  ally  !  ' ' 

The  old  man's  return  interrupted  this  soliloquy,  which 
shows  how  greatly  Godefroid's  ideas  had  changed  during  the 
past  four  months. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  said  Monsieur  Bernard,  in  a  husky 
voice,  "  I  see  you  have  sent  off  the  nurseryman  quite  satisfied, 
for  he  bowed  politely.  In  fact,  my  young  friend,  Providence 
seems  to  have  sent  you  here  for  our  express  benefit  at  the  very 
moment  when  all  seemed  at  an  end.  Alas!  The  man's 
chatter  must  have  told  you  many  things.  It  is  quite  true  that 
I  drew  my  half-year's  pension  a  fortnight  since ;  but  I  had 
other  and  more  pressing  debts,  and  I  was  obliged  to  keep  back 
the  money  for  the  rent  or  be  turned  out  of  doors.  You,  to 
whom  I  have  confided  the  secret  of  my  daughter's  state — who 
have  heard  her " 

He  looked  anxiously  at  Godefroid,  who  nodded  affirma- 
tion. 

•"  Well,  you  can  judge  if  that  would  not  be  her  death-blow. 
For  I  should  have  to  place  her  in  a  hospital.  My  grandson 
and  I  have  been  dreading  this  day,  not  that  Cartier  was  our 
chief  fear;  it  is  the  cold " 

"  My  dear  Monsieur  Bernard,  I  have  plenty  of  wood  ;  take 
some  !  "  cried  Godefroid. 

"  But  how  can  I  ever  repay  such  kindness  ?  "  said  the  old 
man. 

"By  accepting  it  without  ceremony,"  answered  Godefroid 
cordially,  "and  by  giving  me  your  entire  confidence." 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY.  157 

"But  what  claims  have  r  on  such  generosity?"  asked 
Monsieur  Bernard  with  revived  suspicions.  "  My  pride  and 
my  grandson's  is  broken!"  he  exclaimed.  "For  we  have 
already  fallen  so  low  as  to  argue  with  our  two  or  three  creditors. 
The  very  poor  can  have  no  creditors.  Only  those  can  owe 
money  who  keep  up  a  certain  external  display  which  we  have 
utterly  lost.  But  I  have  not  yet  lost  my  commonsense,  my 
reason,"  he  added,  as  if  speaking  to  himself. 

"  Monsieur,"  said  Godefroid  gravely,  "  the  story  you  told 
rue  yesterday  would  draw  tears  from  an  usurer " 

"  No,  no  !  for  Barbet  the  publisher,  our  landlord,  speculates 
on  my  poverty,  and  sets  his  old  servant,  the  woman  Vauthier, 
to  spy  it  out." 

"  How  can  he  speculate  on  it?"  asked  Godefroid. 

"I  will  tell  you  at  another  time,"  replied  the  old  man. 
"  My  daughter  may  be  feeling  cold,  and  since  you  are  so  kind, 
and  since  I  am  in  a  situation  to  accept  charity,  even  if  it  were 
from  my  worst  enemy " 

"  I  will  carry  the  wood,"  said  Godefroid,  who  went  across 
the  landing  with  half  a  score  of  logs,  which  he  laid  down  in 
his  neighbor's  outer  room. 

Monsieur  Bernard  had  taken  an  equal  number,  and  when 
he  beheld  this  little  stock  of  fuel,  he  could  not  conceal  the 
simple,  almost  idiotic  smile,  by  which  men  rescued  from 
moral  and  apparently  inevitable  danger  express  their  joy,  for 
there  is  still  fear  even  in  their  belief. 

"  Accept  all  I  can  give  you,  my  dear  Monsieur  Bernard, 
without  hesitation,  and  when  we  have  saved  your  daughter, 
and  you  are  happy  once  more,  I  will  explain  everything.  Till 
then  leave  everything  to  me.  I  went  to  call  on  the  Jewish 
doctor,  but  unfortunately  Halpersohn  is  absent ;  he  will  not 
be  back  for  two  days." 

Just  then  a  voice  which  sounded  to  Godefroid,  and  which 
really  was,  sweet  and  youthful,  called  out,  "  Papa,  papa  1 " 
in  an  expressive  tone. 


158  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY. 

While  talking  to  the  old  man,  Godefroid  had  already 
remarked,  through  the  crack  of  the  door  opposite  to  that  on 
the  landing,  lines  of  neat  white  paint,  showing  that  the  sick 
woman's  room  must  be  very  different  from  the  others  that 
composed  the  lodging.  His  curiosity  was  now  raised  to  the 
highest  pitch  ;  the  errand  of  mercy  was  to  him  no  more  than  a 
means;  its  end  was  to  see  the  invalid.  He  would  not  believe 
that  any  one  who  spoke  in  such  a  voice  could  be  horrible  to 
behold. 

"  You  are  taking  too  much  trouble,  papa,"  said  the  voice. 
"  Why  do  not  you  have  more  servants — at  your  age?  Dear 
me!" 

"  But  you  know,  dear  Vanda,  that  I  will  not  allow  any  one 
to  wait  on  you  but  myself  or  your  boy." 

These  two  sentences,  which  Godefroid  overheard,  though 
with  some  difficulty,  for  a  curtain  dulled  the  sound,  made  him 
understand  the  case.  The  sick  woman,  surrounded  by  every 
luxury,  knew  nothing  of  the  real  state  in  which  her  father  and 
son  lived.  Monsieur  Bernard's  silk  wrapper,  the  flowers,  and 
his  conversation  with  Cartier  had  already  roused  Godefroid's 
suspicions,  and  he  stood  riveted,  almost  confounded,  by  this 
marvel  of  paternal  devotion.  The  contrast  between  the 
invalid's  room  as  he  imagined  it  and  what  he  saw  was  in  fact 
amazing.  The  reader  may  judge : 

Through  the  door  of  a  third  roorn  which  stood  open, 
Godefroid  saw  two  narrow  beds  of  painted  wood  like  those 
of  the  vilest  lodging-houses,  with  a  straw  mattress  and  a  thin 
upper  mattress ;  on  each  there  was  but  one  blanket.  A  small 
iron  stove  such  as  porters  use  to  cook  on,  with  a  few  lumps 
of  dried  fuel  by  the  side  of  it,  was  enough  to  show  the  desti- 
tution of  the  owner,  without  other  details  in  keeping  with  this 
wretched  stove. 

Godefroid  by  one  step  forward  could  see  the  pots  and  pans 
of  the  wretched  household — glazed  earthenware  jars,  in  which 
a  few  potatoes  were  soaking  in  dirty  water.  Two  tables  of 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY.  159 

blackened  wood,  covered  with  papers  and  books,  stood  in 
front  of  a  window  looking  out  on  the  Rue  Notre-Dame  des 
Champs,  and  showed  how  the  father  and  son  occupied  them- 
selves in  the  evening.  On  each  table  there  was  a  candlestick 
of  wrought-iron  of  the  poorest  description,  and  in  them 
candles  of  the  cheapest  kind,  eight  to  the  pound.  On  a 
third  table,  which  served  as  a  dresser,  there  were  two  shining 
sets  of  silver-gilt  forks  and  spoons,  some  plates,  a  basin  and 
cup  in  Sevres  china,  and  a  knife  with  a  gilt  handle  lying  in  a 
case,  all  evidently  for  the  invalid's  use. 

The  stove  was  alight ;  the  water  in  the  kettle  was  steaming 
gently.  A  wardrobe  of  painted  deal  contained  no  doubt  the 
lady's  linen  and  possessions,  for  he  saw  on  her  father's  bed 
the  clothes  he  had  worn  the  day  before,  spread  by  way  of  a 
covering. 

Some  other  rags  laid  in  the  same  way  on  his  grandson's  bed 
led  him  to  conclude  that  this  was  all  their  wardrobe;  and 
under  the  bed  he  saw  their  shoes. 

The  floor,  swept  but  seldom  no  doubt,  was  like  that  of  a 
schoolroom.  A  large  loaf  that  had  been  cut  was  visible  on  a 
shelf  over  the  table.  In  short,  it  was  poverty  in  the  last  stage 
of  squalor,  poverty  reduced  to  a  system,  with  the  decent  order 
of  a  determination  to  endure  it ;  driven  poverty  that  has  to 
do  everything  at  home,  that  insists  on  doing  it,  but  that  finds 
it  impossible,  and  so  puts  every  poor  possession  to  a  wrong 
use.  A  strong  and  sickening  smell  pervaded  the  room,  which 
evidently  was  but  rarely  cleaned. 

The  anteroom  where  Godefroid  stood  was  at  any  rate  de- 
cent, and  he  guessed  that  it  commonly  served  to  hide  the 
horrors  of  the  room  inhabited  by  the  old  man  and  the  youth. 
This  room,  hung  with  a  Scotch  plaid  paper,  had  four  walnut- 
wood  chairs  and  a  small  table,  and  was  graced  with  portraits 
— a  colored  print  of  Horace  Vernet's  picture  of  the  Emperor; 
those  of  Louis  XVIII.  and  Charles  X.;  and  one  of  Prince 
Poniatowski,  a  friend  no  doubt  of  Monsieur  Bernard's  father- 


160  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY. 

in-law.     There  were  cotton  window-curtains  bound  with  red 
and  finished  with  fringe. 

Godefroid,  keeping  an  eye  on  Nepomucene,  and  hearing 
him  come  up  with  a  load  of  wood,  signed  to  him  to  stack  it 
noiselessly  in  Monsieur  Bernard's  anteroom ;  and,  with  a  deli- 
cate feeling  that  showed  he  was  making  good  progress,  he  shut 
the  bedroom  door  that  Madame  Vauthier's  boy  might  not  see 
the  old  man's  squalor. 

The  anteroom  was  partly  filled  up  by  three  flower-stands, 
full  of  splendid  plants,  two  oval  and  one  round,  all  three  of 
rosewood,  and  elegantly  finished ;  and  Nepomucene,  as  he 
placed  the  logs  on  the  floor,  could  not  help  saying — 

"Isn't  that  lovely?  Ain't  the  flowers  handsome?  It  must 
have  cost  a  pretty  penny !  " 

"Jean,  do  not  make  too  much  noise "  Monsieur  Ber- 
nard called  out. 

"There,  you  hear  him?"  said  Nepomucene  to  Godefroid, 
"  the  poor  old  boy  is  certainly  cracked  !  " 

"  And  what  will  you  be  at  his  age  ?  " 

"Oh,  I  know  sure  enough  !  "  said  Nepomucene;  "I  shall 
be  in  a  sugar-basin." 

"  In  a  sugar-basin  ?  " 

"Yes,  my  bones  will  have  been  made  into  charcoal.  I 
have  seen  the  sugar-boilers'  carts  often  enough  at  Mont-Souris 
come  to  fetch  bone-black  for  their  works,  and  they  told  me 
they  used  it  in  making  sugar."  And  with  this  philosophical 
reply,  he  went  off  for  another  basketful  of  wood. 

Godefroid  quietly  closed  Monsieur  Bernard's  door,  leaving 
him  alone  with  his  daughter. 

Madame  Vauthier  had  meanwhile  prepared  her  new  lodger's 
breakfast,  and  came  with  Felicite  to  serve  it.  Godefroid, 
lost  in  meditation,  was  staring  at  the  fire  on  the  hearth.  He 
was  absorbed  in  reflecting  on  this  poverty  that  included  so 
many  different  forms  of  misery,  though  he  perceived  that  it 
had  its  pleasures  too;  the  ineffable  joys  and  triumphs  of 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY.  161 

fatherly  and  of  filial  devotion.     They  were  like  pearls  sewn 
on  sackcloth. 

"What  romance — even  the  most  famous — can  compare 
with  such  reality?"  thought  he.  "How  noble  is  the  life 
that  mingles  with  such  lives  as  these,  enabling  the  soul  to  dis- 
cern their  cause  and  effect;  to  assuage  suffering  and  encourage 
what  is  good ;  to  become  one  with  misfortune  and  learn  the 
secrets  of  such  a  home  as  this ;  to  be  an  actor  in  ever-new 
dramas  such  as  delight  us  in  the  works  of  the  most  famous 
authors !  I  had  no  idea  that  goodness  could  be  more  inter- 
esting than  vice." 

"Is  everything  to  your  mind,  sir?"  asked  Madame  Vau- 
thier,  who,  helped  by  Felicite,  had  placed  the  table  close  to 
Godefroid.  He  then  saw  an  excellent  cup  of  coffee  with 
milk,  a  smoking  hot  omelette,  fresh  butter,  and  little  red 
radishes. 

"  Where  did  you  find  those  radishes?  "  asked  Godefroid. 

"Monsieur  Cartier  gave  them  to  me,"  said  she.  "I 
thought  you  might  like  them,  sir." 

"And  what  do  you  expect  me  to  pay  for  a  breakfast  like 
this  every  day?"  said  Godefroid. 

"Well,  monsieur,  to  be  quite  fair — it  would  be  hard  to 
supply  it  under  thirty  sous." 

"  Say  thirty  sous,"  said  Godefroid.  "But  how  is  it  that 
close  by  this,  at  Madame  Machillot's,  they  only  ask  me  forty- 
five  francs  a  month  for  dinner,  which  is  just  thirty  sous  a  day  ?  " 

"Oh,  but  what  a  difference,  sir,  between  getting  a  dinner 
for  fifteen  people  and  going  to  buy  everything  that  is  needed 
for  one  breakfast :  a  roll,  you  see,  eggs,  butter — lighting  the 
fire — and  then  sugar,  milk,  coffee.  Why,  they  will  ask  you 
sixteen  sous  for  nothing  but  a  cup  of  coffee  with  milk  in  the 
Place  de  1'Odeon,  and  you  have  to  give  a  sou  or  two  to  the 
waiter !  Here  you  have  no  trouble  at  all ;  you  breakfast  at 
home,  in  your  slippers." 

"Well,  then,  it  is  settled,"  said  Godefroid. 
11 


162  '  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY. 

"And  even  then,  but  for  Madame  Cartier,  from  whom  I 
get  the  milk  and  eggs  and  parsley,  I  could  not  do  it  at  all. 
You  must  go  and  see  their  place,  sir.  Oh,  it  is  really  a  fine 
sight.  They  employ  five  gardeners'  apprentices,  and  Nepo- 
mucene  goes  to  help  with  the  watering  all  the  summer ;  they 
pay  me  to  let  him  go.  And  they  make  a  lot  of  money  out  of 
strawberries  and  melons.  You  are  very  much  interested  in 
Monsieur  Bernard,  it  would  seem?  "  asked  the  widow  in  her 
sweetest  tones.  "  For  really  to  answer  for  their  debts  in  that 
way !  But  perhaps  you  don't  know  how  much  they  owe. 
There  is  the  lady  that  keeps  the  circulating  library  on  the 
Place  Saint-Michel;  she  calls  every  three  or  four  days  for 
thirty  francs,  and  she  wants  it  badly  too.  Heaven  above  ! 
that  poor  woman  in  bed  does  read  and  read.  And  at  two 
sous  a  volume,  thirty  francs  in  two  months " 

"Is  a  hundred  volumes  a  month,"  said  Godefroid. 

"There  goes  the  old  fellow  to  fetch  madame's  cream  and 
roll,"  the  woman  went  on.  "It  is  for  her  tea;  for  she  lives 
on  nothing  but  tea,  that  lady;  she  has  it  twice  a  day,  and 
then  twice  a  week  she  wants  sweets.  She  is  dainty,  I  can  tell 
you !  The  old  boy  buys  her  cakes  and  pies  at  the  pastry- 
cook's in  the  Rue  de  Buci.  Oh,  when  it  is  for  her,  he  sticks 
at  nothing.  He  says  she  is  his  daughter !  Where's  the  man 
who  would  do  all  he  does,  and  at  his  age,  for  his  daughter? 
He  is  killing  himself — himself  and  his  Auguste — and  all  for 
her.  If  you  are  like  me,  sir — I  would  give  twenty  francs  to 
see  her.  Monsieur  Berton  says  she  is  shocking,  an  object  to 
make  a  show  of.  They  did  well  to  come  to  this  part  of  the 
town  where  nobody  ever  comes.  And  you  think  of  dining  at 
Madame  Machillot's,  sir?" 

"Yes,  I  thought  of  making  an  arrangement  with  her." 

"Well,  sir,  it  is  not  to  interfere  with  any  plan  of  yours; 
but,  take  'em  as  you  find  'em,  you  will  find  a  better  eating- 
place  in  the  Rue  de  Tournon ;  you  need  not  bind  yourself  for 
a  month,  and  you  will  have  a  better  table " 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY.  163 

*'  Where  in  the  Rue  de  Tournon  ?  " 

"At  the  successors  of  old  Madame  Girard.  That  is  where 
the  gentlemen  upstairs  dine,  and  they  are  satisfied — they  could 
not  be  better  pleased." 

"Very  well,  Madame  Vauthier,  I  will  take  your  advice  and 
dine  there." 

"And,  my  dear  sir,"  the  woman  went  on,  emboldened  by 
the  easy-going  air  which  Godefroid  had  intentionally  assumed, 
'*  do  you  mean  to  say,  seriously,  that  you  are  such  a  flat  as  to 
think  of  paying  Monsieur  Bernard's  debts?  I  should  be  really 
very  sorry;  for  you  must  remember,  my  good  Monsieur  Gode- 
froid, that  he  is  very  near  on  seventy,  and  after  him  where  are 
you?  There's  an  end  to  his  pension.  What  will  there  be  to 
repay  you  ?  Young  men  are  so  rash.  Do  you  know  that  he 
owes  above  a  thousand  crowns?" 

"  But  to  whom  ?  "  asked  Godefroid. 

"Oh,  that  is  no  concern  of  mine,"  said  Madame  Vauthier 
mysteriously.  "  He  owes  the  money,  and  that's  enough ;  and 
between  you  and  me,  he  is  having  a  hard  time  of  it ;  he  can- 
not get  credit  for  a  sou  in  all  the  neighborhood  for  that  very 
reason." 

"A  thousand  crowns  !  "  said  Godefroid.  "  Be  sure  of  one 
thing ;  if  I  had  a  thousand  crowns,  I  should  be  no  lodger  of 
yours.  But  I,  you  see,  cannot  bear  to  see  others  suffering ; 
and  for  a  few  hundred  francs  that  it  may  cost  me,  I  will  make 
sure  that  my  neighbor,  a  man  with  white  hair,  has  bread  and 
firing.  Why,  a  man  often  loses  as  much  at  cards.  But 
three  thousand  francs — why,  what  do  you  think?  Good 
heavens !  " 

Madame  Vauthier,  quite  taken  in  by  Godefroid's  affected 
candor,  allowed  a  gleam  of  satisfaction  to  light  up  her  face, 
and  this  confirmed  her  lodger's  suspicions.  Godefroid  was 
convinced  that  the  old  woman  was  implicated  in  some  plot 
against  the  hapless  Monsieur  Bernard. 

"It  is  a  strange  thing,  monsieur,  what  fancies  come  into 


164  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY. 

one's  head.  You  will  say  that  I  am  very  inquisitive ;  but  yes- 
terday, when  I  saw  you  talking  to  Monsieur  Bernard,  it  struck 
me  that  you  must  be  a  publisher's  clerk — for  this  is  their  part 
of  the  town.  I  had  a  lodger,  a  foreman  printer,  whose  works 
are  in  the  Rue  de  Vaugirard,  and  he  was  named  the  same 
name  as  you " 

"And  what  concern  is  it  of  yours  what  my  business  is?" 
said  Godefroid. 

"Lor'  !  whether  you  tell  me  or  whether  you  don't,  I  shall 
know  just  the  same,"  said  the  widow.  "Look  at  Monsieur 
Bernard,  for  instance;  well,  for  eighteen  months  I  could  never 
find  out  what  he  was;  but  in  the  nineteenth  month  I  discovered 
that  he  had  been  a  judge  or  a  magistrate,  or  something  of  the 
kind,  in  the  law,  and  that  now  he  is  writing  a  book  about  it. 
What  does  he  get  by  it?  That's  what  I  say.  And  if  he  had 
told  me,  I  should  have  held  my  tongue ;  so  there  !  " 

"  I  am  not  at  present  a  publisher's  agent,  but  I  may  be, 
perhaps,  before  long." 

"There,  I  knew  it!  "  exclaimed  the  woman  eagerly,  and 
turning  from  the  bed  she  was  making  as  an  excuse  to  stay 
chattering  to  her  lodger.  "You  have  come  to  cut  the 

ground   from  under Well,  well,  a  '  nod's  as  good  as  a 

wink' " 

"  Hold  hard  !  "  cried  Godefroid,  standing  between  Mad- 
ame Vauthier  and  the  door.  "  Now,  tell  me,  what  are  you 
paid  for  meddling  in  this?  " 

"Heyday!  "  cried  the  old  woman,  with  a  keen  look  at 
Godefroid.  "  You  are  pretty  sharp  after  all !  " 

She  shut  and  locked  the  outer  door ;  then  she  came  back 
and  sat  down  by  the  fire. 

"  On  my  word  and  honor,  as  sure  as  my  name  is  Vauthier, 
I  took  you  for  a  student  till  I  saw  you  giving  your  logs  to 
old  Father  Bernard.  My  word,  but  you're  a  sharp  one  !  By 
the  Piper,  you  can  play  a  part  well !  I  thought  you  were  a 
perfect  flat.  Now,  will  you  promise  me  a  thousand  francs  ? 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY.  165 

For  as  sure  as  the  day  above  us,  old  Barbet  and  Monsieur 
Metivier  have  promised  me  five  hundred  if  I  keep  my  eyes 
open." 

"What?  Not  they!  Two  hundred  at  the  very  outside, 
my  good  woman,  and  only  promised  at  that — and  you  cannot 
summons  them  for  payment  !  Look  here  ;  if  you  will  put  me 
in  a  position  to  get  the  job  they  are  trying  to  manage  with 
Monsieur  Bernard,  I  will  give  you  four  hundred  !  Come, 
now,  what  are  they  up  to? " 

"Well,  they  have  paid  him  fifteen  hundred  francs  on  ac- 
count for  his  work,  and  made  him  sign  a  bill  for  a  thousand 
crowns.  They  doled  it  out  to  him  a  hundred  francs  at  a 
time,  contriving  to  keep  him  as  poor  as  poor.  They  set  the 
duns  upon  him  ;  they  sent  Cartier,  you  may  wager." 

At  this,  Godefroid,  by  a  look  of  cynical  perspicacity  that 
he  shot  at  the  woman,  made  it  clear  to  her  that  he  quite  un- 
derstood the  game  she  was  playing  for  her  landlord's  benefit. 
Her  speech  threw  a  light  on  two  sides  of  the  question,  for  it 
also  explained  the  rather  strange  scene  between  the  gardener 
and  himself. 

"  Oh,  yes  !  "  she  went  on,  "  they  have  him  fast ;  for  wher- 
ever is  he  to  find  a  thousand  crowns  !  They  intend  to  offer 
him  five  hundred  francs  when  the  work  is  in  their  hands  com- 
plete, and  five  hundred  francs  per  volume  as  they  are  brought 
out  for  sale.  The  business  is  all  in  the  name  of  a  bookseller 
these  gentlemen  have  set  up  in  business  on  the  Quai  des 

Augustins " 

"Oh,  yes — that  little — what's-his-name ?  " 
"Yes,  that's  your  man.     Morand,  formerly  Monsieur  Bar- 
bet's  agent.     There  is  a  heap  of  money  to  be  got  out  of  it,  it 
would  seem." 

"There  will  be  a  heap  of  money  to  put  into  it,"  said 
Godefroid,  with  an  expressive  grimace. 

There  was  a  gentle  knock  at  the  door,  and  Godefroid,  very 
glad  of  the  interruption,  rose  to  open  it. 


166  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY. 

"All  this  is  between  you  and  me,  Mother  Vauthier,"  said 
Godefroid,  seeing  Monsieur  Bernard. 

"  Monsieur  Bernard,"  cried  she,  "  I  have  a  letter  for  you." 

The  old  man  went  down  a  few  steps. 

"No,  no,  I  have  no  letter  for  you,  Monsieur  Bernard;  I 
only  wished  to  warn  you  against  that  young  fellow  there.  He 
is  a  publisher." 

"Oh,  that  accounts  for  everything,"  said  the  old  man  to 
himself.  And  he  came  back  to  his  neighbor's  room  with  a 
quite  altered  countenance. 

The  calmly  cold  expression  on  Monsieur  Bernard's  face 
when  he  reappeared  was  in  such  marked  contrast  to  the  frank 
and  friendly  manner  his  gratitude  had  lent  him,  that  Godefroid 
was  struck  by  so  sudden  a  change. 

"  Monsieur,  forgive  me  for  disturbing  your  solitude,  but 
you  have  since  yesterday  loaded  me  with  favors,  and  a  bene- 
factor confers  rights  on  those  whom  he  obliges." 

Godefroid  bowed. 

"  I,  who  for  five  years  have  suffered  once  a  fortnight  the 
torments  of  the  Redeemer;  I,  who  for  six-and-thirty  years 
was  the  representative  of  Society  and  the  Government,  who 
was  then  the  arm  of  public  vengeance,  and  who,  as  you  may 
suppose,  have  no  illusions  left — nothing,  nothing  but  suffer- 
ings. Well,  monsieur,  your  careful  attention  in  closing  the 
door  of  the  dog-kennel  in  which  my  grandson  and  I  sleep — 
that  trifling  act  was  to  me  the  cup  of  water  of  which  Bossuet 
speaks.  I  found  in  my  heart,  my  worn-out  heart,  which  is  as 
dry  of  tears  as  my  withered  body  is  of  sweat,  the  last  drop  of 
that  elixir  which  in  youth  leads  us  to  see  the  best  side  of  every 
human  action,  and  I  came  to  offer  you  my  hand,  which  I 
never  give  to  any  one  but  my  daughter;  I  came  to  bring  you 
the  heavenly  rose  of  belief,  even  now,  in  goodness." 

"  Monsieur  Bernard,"  said  Godefroid,  remembering  good 
old  Alain's  injunctions,  "  I  did  nothing  with  a  view  to  win- 
ning your  gratitude.  You  are  under  a  mistake." 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY.  167 

"That  is  frank  and  above  board,"  said  the  old  lawyer. 
"  Well,  that  is  what  I  like.  I  was  about  to  reproach  you. 
Forgive  me  ;  I  esteem  you.  So  you  are  a  publisher,  and  you 
want  to  get  my  book  in  preference  to  Messieurs  Barbet, 
Metivier,  and  Morand  ?  That  explains  all.  You  are  prepared 
to  deal  with  me  as  they  were ;  only  you  do  it  with  a  good 
grace." 

"  Old  Vauthier  has  just  told  you,  I  suppose,  that  I  am  a 
publisher's  agent  ?  " 

"Yes,"  said  he. 

"  Well,  Monsieur  Bernard,  before  I  can  say  what  we  are  pre- 
pared to  pay  more  than  those  gentlemen  offer,  I  must  under- 
stand on  what  terms  you  stand  with  them." 

"Very  true,"  said  the  old  man,  who  seemed  delighted  to  find 
himself  the  object  of  a  competition  by  which  he  could  not 
fail  to  benefit.  "  Do  you  know  what  the  work  is?  " 

"  No;  I  only  know  that  there  is  something  to  be  made  by 
it." 

"  It  is  only  half-past  nine ;  my  daughter  has  had  her  break- 
fast, my  grandson  Auguste  will  not  come  in  till  a  quarter  to 
eleven.  Cartier  will  not  be  here  with  the  flowers  for  an  hour — 
we  have  time  to  talk,  monsieur — monsieur  who  ?" 

"Godefroid." 

"  Monsieur  Godefroid.  The  book  in  question  was  planned 
by  me  in  1825,  at  a  time  when  the  Ministry,  struck  by  the 
constant  reduction  of  personal  estate,  drafted  the  Law  of 
Entail  and  Seniority  which  was  thrown  out.  I  had  observed 
many  defects  in  our  codes  and  in  the  fundamental  principle 
of  French  law.  The  laws  have  been  the  subject  of  many 
important  works  ;  but  all  those  treatises  are  essentially  on  juris- 
prudence ;  no  one  has  been  so  bold  as  to  study  the  results  of 
the  Revolution — or  of  Napoleon's  rule,  if  you  prefer  it — as 
a  whole,  analyzing  the  spirit  of  these  laws  and  the  working 
of  their  application.  That  is,  in  general  terms,  the  purpose 
of  my  book.  I  have  called  it  the  '  Spirit  of  the  Modern 


168  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY. 

Laws.'  It  covers  organic  law  as  well  as  the  codes — all  the 
codes,  for  we  have  five !  My  book,  too,  is  in  five  volumes, 
and  a  sixth  volume  of  authorities,  quotations,  and  references. 
I  have  still  three  months'  work  before  me. 

"  The  owner  of  this  house,  a  retired  publisher,  scented  a 
speculation.  I,  in  the  first  instance,  thought  only  of  bene- 
fiting my  country.  This  Barbet  has  got  the  better  of  me. 
You  will  wonder  how  a  publisher  could  entrap  an  old  lawyer ; 
but  you,  monsieur,  know  my  history,  and  this  man  is  a  money- 
lender. He  has  the  sharp  eye  and  the  knowledge  of  the 
world  that  such  men  must  have.  His  advances  have  just  kept 
pace  with  my  necessity ;  he  has  always  come  in  at  the  very 
moment  when  despair  has  made  me  a  defenseless  prey." 

"Not  at  all,  my  dear  sir,"  said  Godefroid.  "He  has 
simply  kept  Madame  Vauthier  as  a  spy.  But  the  terms.  Tell 
me  honestly." 

"  They  advanced  me  fifteen  hundred  francs,  represented  at 
the  present  rates  by  three  bills  for  a  thousand  francs  each,  and 
these  three  thousand  francs  are  secured  to  them  by  a  lien  on 
the  property  of  my  book,  which  I  cannot  dispose  of  else- 
where till  I  have  paid  off  the  bills ;  the  bills  have  been  pro- 
tested ;  judgment  has  been  pronounced.  Here,  monsieur,  you 
see  the  complications  of  poverty. 

"At  the  most  moderate  estimate,  the  first  edition  of  this 
vast  work,  the  result  of  ten  years'  labor  and  thirty-six  years' 
experience,  will  be  well  worth  ten  thousand  francs.  Well, 
just  five  days  since,  Morand  offered  me  a  thousand  crowns  and 
my  note  of  hand  paid  off  for  all  rights.  As  I  could  never 
find  three  thousand  two  hundred  and  forty  francs,  unless  you 
intervene  between  us,  I  must  yield. 

"  They  would  not  take  my  word  of  honor;  for  further  se- 
curity they  insisted  on  bills  of  exchange  which  have  been  pro- 
tested, and  I  shall  be  imprisoned  for  debt.  If  I  pay  up,  these 
money-lenders  will  have  doubled  their  loan  ;  if  I  deal  with 
them,  they  will  make  a  fortune,  for  one  of  them  was  a  paper- 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY.  169 

maker,  and  God  only  knows  how  low  they  can  keep  the  price 
of  materials.  And  then,  with  my  name  to  it,  they  know  that 
they  are  certain  of  a  sale  of  ten  thousand  copies." 

"  Why,  monsieur — you,  a  retired  judge !" 

"  What  can  I  say  ?  I  have  not  a  friend,  no  one  remembers 
me  !  And  yet  I  saved  many  heads  even  if  I  sentenced  many 
to  fall !  And  then  there  is  my  daughter,  my  daughter  whose 
nurse  and  companion  I  am,  for  I  work  only  at  night.  Ah ! 
young  man,  none  but  the  wretched  should  be  set  to  judge  the 
wretched.  I  see  now  that  of  yore  I  was  too  severe." 

"  I  do  not  ask  you  your  name,  monsieur.  I  have  not  a 
thousand  crowns  at  my  disposal,  especially  if  I  pay  Halper- 
sohn  and  your  little  bills;  but  I  can  save  you  if  you  will 
pledge  your  word  not  to  dispose  of  your  book  without  due 
notice  to  me ;  it  is  impossible  to  embark  in  so  important  a 
matter  without  consulting  professional  experts.  The  persons 
I  work  for  are  powerful,  and  I  can  promise  you  success  if  you 
can  promise  me  perfect  secrecy,  even  from  your  children — and 
keep  your  word." 

"  The  only  success  I  care  for  is  my  poor  Vanda's  recovery; 
for,  I  assure  you,  the  sight  of  such  sufferings  extinguishes 
every  other  feeling  in  a  father's  heart ;  the  loss  of  fame  is 
nothing  to  the  man  who  sees  a  grave  yawning  at  his  feet " 

"  I  will  call  on  you  this  evening.  Halpersohn  may  come 
home  at  any  moment,  and  I  go  every  day  to  see  if  he  has  re- 
turned. I  will  spend  to-day  in  your  service." 

"Oh,  if  you  could  bring  about  my  daughter's  recovery, 

monsieur ,  monsieur,  I  would  make  you  a  present  of  my 

book!" 

"  But,"  said  Godefroid,  "  I  am  not  a  publisher." 

The  old  man  started  with  surprise. 

"  I  could  not  help  letting  old  Vauthier  think  so  for  the  sake 
of  ascertaining  what  snares  had  been  laid  for  you." 

"  But  who  are  you,  then  ?  " 

"Godefroid,"  was  the  reply;  "and  as  you  have  allowed 


170  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTOR  Y. 

me  to  supply  you  with  the  means  of  living  better,"  added 
the  young  man,  smiling,  "  you  may  call  me  Godefroid  de 
Bouillon."* 

The  old  lawyer  was  too  much  touched  to  laugh  at  the  jest. 
He  held  out  his  hand  to  Godefroid  and  grasped  the  young 
man's  warmly. 

"You  wish  to  remain  unknown?"  said  Monsieur  Bernard, 
looking  at  Godefroid  with  melancholy,  mixed  with  some  un- 
easiness. 

"If  you  will  allow  me." 

"  Well,  do  as  you  think  proper.  And  come  in  this  evening; 
you  will  see  my  daughter,  if  her  state  allows." 

This  was  evidently  the  greatest  concession  the  poor  father 
could  make;  and  seeing  Godefroid's  grateful  look,  the  old 
man  had  the  pleasure  of  feeling  that  he  was  understood. 

An  hour  later  Cartier  came  back  with  some  beautiful 
flowers,  replanted  the  stands  with  his  own  hands  in  fresh  moss, 
and  Godefroid  paid  the  bill,  as  he  did  the  subscription  to  the 
lending  library,  for  which  the  account  was  sent  in  soon  after. 
Books  and  flowers  were  the  staff  of  life  to  this  poor  sick,  or, 
rather,  tormented  woman,  who  could  live  on  so  little  food. 

As  he  thought  of  this  family  in  the  coils  of  disaster,  like 
that  of  Laocoon — a  sublime  allegory  of  many  lives ! — Gode- 
froid, making  his  way  leisurely  on  foot  to  the  Rue  Marbeuf, 
felt  in  his  heart  that  he  was  curious  rather  than  benevolent. 
The  idea  of  the  sick  woman,  surrounded  with  luxuries  in  the 
midst  of  abject  squalor,  made  him  forget  the  horrible  details 
of  the  strange  nervous  malady,  which  is  happily  an  extraordi- 
nary exception,  though  abundantly  proved  by  various  histo- 
rians. One  of  our  gossiping  chronicle  writers,  Tallemant  des 
Reaux,  mentions  an  instance.  We  like  to  think  of  women  as 
elegant  even  in  their  worst  sufferings,  and  Godefroid  promised 
himself  some  pleasure  in  penetrating  into  the  room  which  only 
*  A  strong,  clear  soup. 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  171 

the  physician,  the  father,  and  the  son  had  entered  for  six  years 
past.  However,  he  ended  by  reproaching  himself  for  his  curi- 
osity. The  neophyte  even  understood  that  his  feeling,  however 
natural,  would  die  out  by  degrees  as  he  carried  out  his  merciful 
errands,  by  dint  of  seeing  new  homes  and  new  sorrows.  Such 
messengers,  in  fact,  attain  to  a  heavenly  benignity  which 
nothing  can  shock  or  amaze,  just  as  in  love  we  attain  to  a 
sublime  quiescence  of  feeling  in  the  conviction  of  its  strength 
and  duration,  by  a  constant  habit  of  submission  and  sweet- 
ness. 

Godefroid  was  told  that  Halpersohn  had  come  home  during 
the  night,  but  had  been  obliged  to  go  out  in  his  carriage  the 
first  thing  in  the  morning  to  see  the  patients  who  were  awaiting 
him.  The  woman  at  the  gate  told  Godefroid  to  come  back 
next  morning  before  nine. 

Remembering  Monsieur  Alain's  advice  as  to  parsimony  in 
his  personal  expenses,  Godefroid  dined  for  twenty-five  sous  in 
the  Rue  de  Tournon,  and  was  rewarded  for  his  self-denial  by 
finding  himself  among  compositors  and  proof-readers.  He 
heard  a  discussion  about  the  cost  of  production,  and,  joining 
in,  picked  up  the  information  that  an  octavo  volume  of  forty 
sheets,  of  which  a  thousand  copies  were  printed,  would  not 
cost  more  than  thirty  sous  per  copy  under  favorable  circum- 
stances. He  determined  on  going  to  inquire  the  price  com- 
monly asked  for  such  volumes  on  sale  at  the  law  publishers,  so 
as  to  be  in  a  position  to  dispute  the  point  with  the  publishers 
who  had  a  hold  on  Monsieur  Bernard,  if  he  should  happen  to 
meet  them. 

At  about  seven  in  the  evening  he  came  back  to  the  Boulevard 
Mont-Parnasse  along  the  Rue  de  Vaugirard,  the  Rue  Madame, 
and  the  Rue  de  1' Quest,  and  he  saw  how  deserted  that  part 
of  the  town  is,  for  he  met  nobody.  It  is  true  that  the  cold 
was  severe,  snow  fell  in  large  flakes,  and  the  carts  made  no 
noise  on  the  stones. 

"Ah,  here   you  are,  monsieur  !  "  said   Madame  Vauthier 


172  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY. 

when  she  saw  him.     "  If  I  had  known  you  would  come  in  so 
early,  I  would  have  lighted  your  fire." 

"It  is  unnecessary,"  replied  Godefroid,  as  the  woman  fol- 
lowed him;  "  I  am  going  to  spend  the  evening  with  Monsieur 
Bernard." 

"Ah !  very  good.  You  are  cousins,  I  suppose,  that  you  are 
hand  and  glove  with  him  by  the  second  day.  I  thought,  per- 
haps, you  would  have  liked  to  finish  what  we  were  saying " 

"Oh,  about  the  four  hundred  francs!  "  said  Godefroid  in 
an  undertone.  "  Look  here,  Mother  Vauthier,  you  would 
have  had  them  this  evening  if  you  had  said  nothing  to  Mon- 
sieur Bernard.  You  want  to  hunt  with  the  hounds  and  run 
with  the  hare,  and  you  will  get  neither ;  for,  so  far  as  I  am 
concerned,  you  have  spoiled  my  game — my  chances  are  alto- 
gether ruined " 

"Don't  you  believe  that,  my  good  sir.  To-morrow,  when 
you  are  at  breakfast " 

"  Oh,  to-morrow  I  must  be  off  at  daybreak  like  your 
authors." 

Godefroid's  past  experience  and  life  as  a  dandy  and  jour- 
nalist had  been  so  far  of  use  to  him  as  to  lead  him  to  guess 
that  if  he  did  not  take  this  line,  Barbel's  spy  would  warn  the 
publisher  that  there  was  something  in  the  wind,  and  he  would 
then  take  such  steps  as  would  ere  long  endanger  Monsieur 
Bernard's  liberty;  whereas,  by  leaving  the  three  usurious 
negotiators  to  believe  that  their  schemes  were  not  in  peril, 
they  would  keep  quiet. 

But  Godefroid  was  not  yet  a  match  for  Parisian  humanity 
when  it  assumes  the  guise  of  a  Madame  Vauthier.  This 
woman  meant  to  have  Godefroid's  money  and  her  landlord's 
too.  She  flew  right  off  to  Monsieur  Barbet,  while  Godefroid 
changed  his  dress  to  call  on  Monsieur  Bernard's  daughter. 

Eight  o'clock  was  striking  at  the  convent  of  the  Visitation, 
whose  clock  regulated  the  life  of  the  whole  neighborhood, 
when  Godefroid,  very  full  of  curiosity,  knocked  at  his  friend's 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  173 

door.  Auguste  opened  it;  as  it  was  Saturday,  the  lad 
spent  his  evening  at  home;  Godefroid  saw  that  he  wore  a 
jacket  of  black  velvet,  black  trousers  that  were  quite  decent, 
and  a  blue  silk  tie ;  but  his  surprise  at  seeing  the  youth  so 
unlike  his  usual  self  ceased  when  he  entered  the  invalid's 
room.  He  at  once  understood  the  necessity  for  the  father 
and  the  boy  to  be  presentably  dressed. 

The  walls  of  the  room,  hung  with  yellow  silk,  paneled  with 
bright  green  cord,  made  the  room  look  extremely  cheerful ; 
the  cold  tiled  floor  was  covered  by  a  flowered  carpet  on  a 
white  ground.  The  two  windows,  with  their  handsome  cur- 
tains lined  with  white  silk,  were  like  bowers,  the  flower-stands 
were  so  full  of  beauty,  and  blinds  hindered  them  from  being 
seen  from  outside  in  a  quarter  where  such  lavishness  was  rare. 
The  woodwork,  painted  white,  and  varnished,  was  touched  up 
with  gold  lines.  A  heavy  curtain,  embroidered  in  tent-stitch 
with  grotesque  foliage  on  a  yellow  ground,  hung  over  the  door 
and  deadened  every  sound  from  outside.  This  splendid  cur- 
tain had  been  worked  by  the  invalid,  who  embroidered  like  a 
fairy  when  she  had  the  use  of  her  hands. 

Opposite  the  door,  at  the  farther  end  of  the  room,  the 
mantel-shelf,  covered  with  green  velvet,  had  a  set  of  very 
costly  ornaments,  the  only  relic  of  the  wealth  of  the  two 
families.  There  was  a  very  curious  clock ;  an  elephant  sup- 
porting a  porcelain  tower  filled  with  beautiful  flowers;  two 
candelabra  in  the  same  style,  and  some  valuable  Oriental 
pieces.  The  fender,  the  dogs,  and  and-irons  were  all  of  the 
finest  workmanship. 

The  largest  of  the  three  flower-stands  stood  in  the  middle 
of  the  room,  and  above  it  hung  a  porcelain  chandelier  of 
floral  design. 

The  bed  on  which  the  judge's  daughter  lay  was  one  of 
those  fine  examples  of  carved  wood,  painted  white  and  gold, 
that  were  made  in  the  time  of  Louis  XV.  By  the  invalid's 
pillow  was  a  pretty  inlaid  table,  on  which  were  the  various 


174  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTOR  Y. 

objects  necessary  for  a  life  spent  in  bed ;  a  light  bracket  for 
two  candles  was  fixed  to  the  wall,  and  could  be  turned  back- 
ward and  forward  by  a  touch.  In  front  of  her  was  a  bed- 
table,  wonderfully  contrived  for  her  convenience.-  The  bed 
was  covered  with  a  magnificent  counterpane,  and  draped  with 
curtains  looped  back  in  festoons;  it  was  loaded  with  books 
and  a  work-basket,  and  among  these  various  objects  Godefroid 
would  hardly  have  discovered  the  sick  woman  but  for  the 
tapers  in  the  two  candle-branches. 

There  seemed  to  be  nothing  of  her  but  a  very  white  face, 
darkly  marked  round  the  eyes  by  much  suffering ;  her  eyes 
shone  like  fire ;  and  her  principal  ornament  was  her  splendid 
black  hair,  of  which  the  heavy  curls,  set  out  in  bunches  of 
numerous  ringlets,  showed  that  the  care  and  arrangement  of 
her  hair  occupied  a  great  part  Of  the  invalid's  day;  a  movable 
mirror  at  the  foot  of  the  bed  confirmed  the  idea. 

No  kind  of  modern  elegance  was  lacking,  and  a  few  trifling 
toys  for  poor  Vanda's  amusement  showed  that  her  father's 
affection  verged  on  mania. 

The  old  man  rose  from  a  very  handsome  easy-chair  of  Louis 
XV.  style,  white  and  gold,  and  covered  with  needlework, 
and  went  forward  a  few  steps  to  welcome  Godefroid,  who 
certainly  would  not  have  recognized  him  ;  for  his  cold,  stern 
face  had  assumed  the  gay  expression  peculiar  to  old  men  who 
have  preserved  their  dignity  of  manner  and  the  superficial 
frivolity  of  courtiers.  His  purple,  wadded  dressing-gown 
was  in  harmony  with  the  luxury  about  him,  and  he  took  snuff 
out  of  a  gold  box  set  with  diamonds. 

"Here,  my  dear,"  said  Monsieur  Bernard  to  his  daughter, 
"  is  our  neighbor  of  whom  I  spoke  to  you."  And  he  signed 
to  his  grandson  to  bring  forward  one  of  two  armchairs,  in  the 
same  style  as  his  own,  which  were  standing  on  either  side  of 
the  fireplace. 

"  Monsieur's  name  is  Godefroid,  and  he  is  most  kind  in 
standing  on  no  ceremony " 


"HERE,    MY    DEAR,    is    OUR    NEIGHBOR    OF    wm 

TO     YOU." 


THE   SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  175 

Vanda  moved  her  head  in  acknowledgment  of  Godefroid's 
low  bow ;  and  by  the  movement  of  her  throat  as  it  bent  and 
unbent,  he  discovered  that  all  this  woman's  vitality  was  seated 
in  her  head.  Her  emaciated  arms  and  lifeless  hands  lay  on 
the  fine  white  sheet  like  objects  quite  apart  from  the  body, 
and  that  seemed  to  fill  no  space  in  the  bed.  The  things 
needed  for  her  use  were  on  a  set  of  shelves  behind  the  bed, 
and  screened  by  a  silk  curtain. 

"You,  my  dear  sir,  arc  the  first  person,  excepting  only  the 
doctors — who  have  ceased  to  be  men  to  me — whom  I  have  set 
eyes  on  for  six  years ;  so  you  can  have  no  idea  of  the  interest 
I  have  felt  in  you  ever  since  my  father  told  me  you  were 
coming  to  call  on  us.  It  was  passionate,  unconquerable  curi- 
osity, like  that  of  our  mother  Eve.  My  father,  who  is  so  good 
to  me ;  my  son,  of  whom  I  am  so  fond,  are  undoubtedly 
enough  to  fill  up  the  vacuum  of  a  soul  now  almost  bereft  of 
body ;  but  that  soul  is  still  a  woman's  after  all !  I  recognized 
that  in  the  childish  joy  I  felt  in  the  idea  of  your  visit.  You 
will  do  me  the  pleasure  of  taking  a  cup  of  tea  with  us,  I 
hope?" 

"Yes,  Monsieur  Godefroid  has  promised  us  the  pleasure  of 
his  company  for  the  evening,"  said  the  old  man,  with  the  air 
of  a  millionaire  doing  the  honors  of  his  house. 

Auguste,  seated  in  a  low,  worsted-work  chair  by  a  small 
table  of  inlaid  wood,  finished  with  brass  mouldings,  was  read- 
ing a  book  by  the  light  of  the  wax-candles  on  the  elegant 
chimney-shelf. 

"Auguste,  my  dear,  tell  Jean  to  bring  tea  in  an  hour's 
time." 

She  spoke  with  some  pointed  meaning,  and  Auguste  replied 
by  a  nod. 

"  Will  you  believe,  monsieur,  that  for  the  past  six  years  no 
one  has  waited  on  me  but  my  father  and  my  boy,  and  I  could 
not  endure  anybody  else.  If  I  were  to  lose  them,  I  should 
die  of  it.  My  father  will  not  even  allow  Jean,  a  poor  old 


176  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

Normandy  peasant  who  has  lived  with  us  for  thirty  years — will 
not  even  let  him  come  into  the  room." 

"I  should  think  not,  indeed!  "  said  the  old  man  readily. 
"Monsieur  Godefroid  has  seen  him;  he  saws  and  brings  in 
wood,  he  cooks  and  runs  errands,  and  wears  a  dirty  apron  ;  he 
would  have  made  hash  of  all  these  pretty  things,  which  are  so 
necessary  to  my  poor  child,  to  whom  this  elegance  is  second 
nature." 

"Indeed,  madame,  your  father  is  quite  right " 

"But,  why?"  she  urged.  "  If  Jean  had  damaged  my 
room,  my  father  would  have  renewed  it." 

"  Of  course,  my  child ;  but  what  would  have  prevented  me 
is  the  fact  that  you  cannot  leave  it ;  and  you  have  no  idea 
what  Paris  workmen  are.  It  would  take  them  more  than 
three  months  to  restore  your  room.  Only  think  of  the  dust 
that  would  come  out  of  your  carpet  if  it  were  taken  up.  Let 
Jean  do  your  room !  Do  not  think  of  such  a  thing.  By 
taking  the  extreme  care  which  only  your  father  and  your  boy 
can  take,  we  have  spared  you  sweeping  and  dust ;  if  Jean  came 
in  to  help,  everything  would  be  broken  and  done  for  in  a 
month." 

"  It  is  not  so  much  out  of  economy  as  for  the  sake  of  your 
health,"  said  Godefroid.  "Monsieur  your  father  is  quite 
right." 

"  Oh,  I  am  not  complaining,"  said  Vanda  in  a  saucy  tone. 

Her  voice  had  the  quality  of  a  concert ;  soul,  action,  and 
life  were  all  concentrated  in  her  eyes  and  her  voice ;  for 
Vanda,  by  careful  practice,  for  which  time  had  certainly  not 
been  lacking,  had  succeeded  in  overcoming  the  difficulties 
arising  from  her  loss  of  teeth. 

"  I  am  still  happy,  monsieur,  in  spite  of  the  dreadful  malady 
that  tortures  me ;  for  wealth  is  certainly  a  great  help  in  en- 
during my  sufferings.  If  we  had  been  in  poverty,  I  should 
have  died  eighteen  years  ago,  and  I  am  still  alive.  I  have 
many  enjoyments,  and  they  are  all  the  keener  because  I  live 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY.  177 

on,  triumphing  over  death.  You  will  think  me  a  great  chat- 
terbox," she  added,  with  a  smile. 

"  Madame,"  said  Godefroid,  "  I  could  beg  you  to  talk  for 
ever,  for  I  never  heard  a  voice  to  compare  with  yours — it  is 
music  !  Rubini  is  not  more  delightful " 

"  Do  not  mention  Rubini  or  the  opera,"  said  the  old  man 
sadly.  "  However  rich  we  may  be,  it  is  impossible  to  give 
my  daughter,  who  was  a  great  musician,  a  pleasure  to  which 
she  was  devoted." 

"I  apologize,"  said  Godefroid. 

"You  will  fall  into  our  ways,"  said  the  old  man. 

"  This  is  your  training,"  said  the  invalid,  smiling.  "  When 
we  have  warned  you  several  times  by  crying,  '  Lookout ! ' 
you  will  know  all  the  blindman's-buff  of  our  conversation  !  " 

Godefroid  exchanged  a  swift  glance  with  Monsieur  Bernard, 
who,  seeing  tears  in  his  new  friend's  eyes,  put  his  finger  to 
his  lip  as  a  warning  not  to  betray  the  heroic  devotion  he  and 
the  boy  had  shown  for  the  past  seven  years. 

This  devoted  and  unflagging  imposture,  proved  by  the  in- 
valid's entire  deception,  produced  on  Godefroid  at  this  mo- 
ment the  effect  of  looking  at  a  precipitous  rock  whence  two 
chamois-hunters  were  on  the  point  of  falling. 

The  splendid  gold  and  diamond  snuff-box  with  which  the 
old  man  trifled,  leaning  over  the  foot  of  his  daughter's  bed, 
was  the  same  touch  of  genius  which  in  a  great  actor  wrings 
from  us  a  cry  of  admiration.  Godefroid  looked  at  the  snuff- 
box, wondering  why  it  had  not  been  sold  or  pawned,  but  he 
postponed  the  idea  till  he  could  discuss  it  with  the  old  man. 

"This  evening,  Monsieur  Godefroid,  my  daughter  was  so 
greatly  excited  by  the  promise  of  your  visit,  that  the  various 
strange  symptoms  of  her  malady  which,  for  nearly  a  fortnight 
past,  have  driven  us  to  despair,  suddenly  disappeared.  You 
may  imagine  my  gratitude  !  " 

"And  mine  !  "  cried  Vanda,  in  an  insinuating  voice,  with 
a  graceful  inclination  of  her  head.  "You  are  a  deputation 
12 


178  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

from  the  outer  world.  Since  I  was  twenty  I  have  not  known 
what  a  drawing-room  is  like,  or  a  party,  or  a  ball ;  and  I  love 
dancing,  I  am  crazy  about  the  play,  and,  above  all,  about 
music.  Well,  I  imagine  everything  in  my  mind.  I  read  a 
great  deal,  and  my  father  tells  me  all  about  the  gay  world  and 
its  doings " 

As  he  listened,  Godefroid  felt  prompted  to  kneel  at  the  feet 
of  this  poor  old  man. 

"  When  he  goes  to  the  opera — and  he  often  goes — he  de- 
scribes the  dresses  to  me  and  all  the  singers.  Oh  !  I  should 
like  to  be  well  again ;  in  the  first  place,  for  my  father's  sake, 
for  he  lives  for  me  alone,  as  I  live  for  him  and  through  him, 
and  then  for  my  son's — I  should  like  him  to  know  another 
mother.  Oh  !  monsieur,  what  perfect  men  are  my  dear  old 
father  and  my  admirable  son  !  Then,  I  could  wish  for  health 
also,  that  I  might  hear  Lablache,  Rubini,  Tamburini,  Grisi, 
the  '  Puritani '  too  !  But " 

"  Come,  my  dear,  compose  yourself.  If  we  talk  about  music, 
it  is  fatal  !  "  said  the  old  father,  with  a  smile. 

And  that  smile,  which  made  him  look  younger,  evidently 
constantly  deceived  the  sick  woman. 

"  Well,  I  will  be  good,"  said  Vanda,  with  a  saucy  pout. 
"  But  let  me  have  a  melodeon." 

This  instrument  had  lately  been  invented ;  it  could,  by  a 
little  contrivance,  be  placed  by  the  invalid's  bed,  and  would 
only  need  the  pressure  of  the  foot  to  give  out  an  organ-like 
tone.  This  instrument,  in  its  most  improved  form,  was  as 
effective  as  a  piano ;  but  at  that  time  it  cost  three  hundred 
francs.  Vanda,  who  read  newspapers  and  reviews,  had  heard 
of  such  an  instrument,  and  had  been  longing  for  one  for  two 
months  past. 

"Yes,  madame,  and  I  can  procure  you  one,"  replied  Gode- 
froid at  an  appealing  glance  from  the  old  man.  "A  friend 
of  mine  who  is  setting  out  for  Algiers  has  a  very  fine  one, 
which  I  will  borrow  of  him ;  for  before  buying  one,  you  had 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  179 

better  try  it.  It  is  quite  possible  that  "the  sound,  which  is 
strongly  vibrating,  may  be  too  much  for  you." 

"Can  I  have  it  to-morrow?"  she  asked  with  the  eagerness 
of  a  creole. 

"To-morrow!"  objected  Monsieur  Bernard.  "That  is 
very  soon;  beside,  to-morrow  will  be  Sunday." 

"To  be  sure,"  said  she,  looking  at  Godefroid,  who  felt  as 
though  he  saw  a  soul  fluttering  as  he  admired  the  ubiquity  of 
Vanda's  eyes. 

Until  now  he  had  never  understood  what  the  power  of  the 
voice  and  eyes  might  be  when  the  entire  vitality  was  concen- 
trated in  them.  Her  glance  was  more  than  a  glance  ;  it  was 
a  flame,  or,  rather,  a  blaze  of  divine  light,  a  communicative 
ray  of  life  and  intelligence,  thought  made  visible.  The  voice, 
with  its  endless  intonations,  supplied  the  place  of  movement, 
gesture,  and  turns  of  the  head.  And  her  changing  color, 
varying  like  that  of  the  fabled  chameleon,  made  the  illusion — 
or,  if  you  will,  the  delusion — complete.  That  weary  head, 
buried  in  a  cambric  pillow  frilled  with  lace,  was  a  complete 
woman. 

Never  in  his  life  had  Godefroid  seen  so  noble  a  spectacle, 
and  he  could  hardly  endure  his  emotions.  Another  grand 
feature,  where  everything  was  strange  in  a  situation  so  full  of 
romance  and  of  horror,  was  that  the  soul  alone  seemed  to  be 
living  in  the  spectators.  This  atmosphere,  where  all  was  sen- 
timent, had  a  celestial  influence.  They  were  as  unconscious 
of  their  bodies  as  the  woman  in  bed ;  everything  was  pure 
spirit.  By  dint  of  gazing  at  these  frail  remains  of  a  pretty 
woman,  Godefroid  forgot  the  elegant  luxury  of  the  room,  and 
felt  himself  in  heaven.  It  was  not  till  half-an-hour  after  that 
he  noticed  a  whatnot  covered  with  curiosities,  over  which 
hung  a  noble  portrait  that  Vanda  desired  him  to  look  it,  as  it 
was  by  Gericault. 

"Gericault,"  said  she,  "was  a  native  of  Rouen,  and  his 
family  being  under  some  obligations  to  my  father,  who  was 


180  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY. 

president  of  the  supreme  court  there,  he  showed  his  gratitude 
by  painting  that  masterpiece,  in  which  you  see  me  at  the  age 
of  sixteen." 

"  You  have  there  a  very  fine  picture,"  said  Godefroid,  "and 
one  that  is  quite  unknown  to  those  who  have  studied  the  rare 
works  of  that  great  genius." 

"To  me  it  is  no  longer  an  object  of  anything  but  affec- 
tionate regard,"  said  she,  "since  I  live  only  by  my  feelings; 
and  I  have  a  beautiful  life,"  she  went  on,  looking  at  her  father 
with  her  whole  soul  in  her  eyes.  "  Oh,  monsieur,  if  you  could 
but  know  what  my  father  is !  Who  would  believe  that  the 
austere  and  dignified  judge  to  whom  the  Emperor  owed  so 
much  that  he  gave  him  that  snuff-box,  and  whom  Charles  X. 
rewarded  by  the  gift  of  that  Sevres  tray" — and  she  looked  at 
a  side-table — "  that  the  stanch  upholder  of  law  and  authority, 
the  learned  political  writer,  has  in  a  heart  of  rock  all  the  ten- 
derness of  a  mother !  Oh,  papa,  papa !  Come,  kiss  me — I 
insist  on  it — if  you  love  me." 

The  old  man  rose,  leaned  over  the  bed,  and  set  a  kiss  on 
his  daughter's  high  poetic  brow,  for  her  sickly  fancies  were 
not  invariably  furies  of  affection.  Then  he  walked  up  and 
down  the  room,  but  without  a  sound,  for  he  wore  slippers — 
the  work  of  his  daughter's  hands. 

"  And  what  is  your  occupation  ?  "  she  asked  Godefroid  after 
a  pause. 

"  Madame,  I  am  employed  by  certain  pious  persons  to  take 
help  to  the  unfortunate." 

"  A  beautiful  mission  !  "  said  she.  "  Do  you  know  that  the 
idea  of  devoting  myself  to  such  work  has  often  occurred  to 
me?  But  what  ideas  have  not  occurred  to  me?"  said  she, 
with  a  little  shake  of  her  head.  "  Pain  is  a  torch  that  throws 
light  on  life,  and  if  I  ever  recover  my  health — 

"You  shall  enjoy  yourself,  my  child,"  the  old  man  put  in. 

"  Certainly  I  long  to  enjoy  life, "said  she,  "but should  I  be 
able  for  it  ?  My  son,  I  hope,  will  be  a  lawyer,  worthy  of  his 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY.  181 

two  grandfathers,  and  he  must  leave  me.  What  is  to  be  done? 
If  God  restores  me  to  life,  I  will  dedicate  it  to  Him.  Oh, 
not  till  I  have  given  you  both  as  much  of  it  as  you  desire  !  " 
she  exclaimed,  looking  at  her  father  and  her  boy.  "  There 
are  times,  my  dear  father,  when  Monsieur  de  Maistre's  ideas 
work  in  my  brain,  and  I  fancy  I  am  expiating  some  sin." 

"  That  is  what  comes  of  so  much  reading !  "  cried  the  old 
man,  visibly  grieved. 

"  There  was  that  brave  Polish  general,  my  great-grand- 
father,; he  meddled  very  innocently  in  the  concerns  of 
Poland " 

"  Now  we  have  come  back  to  Poland  !  "  exclaimed  Bernard. 

"How  can  I  help  it,  papa?  My  sufferings  are  intolerable, 
they  make  me  hate  life  and  disgust  me  with  myself.  Well, 
what  have  I  done  to  deserve  them  ?  Such  an  illness  is  not 
merely  disordered  health ;  it  is  a  complete  wreck  of  the  whole 
constitution,  and " 

"  Sing  the  national  air  your  poor  mother  used  to  sing  ;  it 
will  please  Monsieur  Godefroid,  I  have  spoken  to  him  of  your 
voice,"  said  her  father,  evidently  quite  anxious  to  divert  his 
daughter's  mind  from  the  ideas  she  was  following  out. 

Vanda  began  to  sing  in  a  low,  soft  voice  a  hymn  in  the 
Polish  tongue,  which  left  Godefroid  bewildered  with  admira- 
tion and  sadness.  This  melody,  a  good  deal  like  the  long- 
drawn  melancholy  tunes  of  Brittany,  is  one  of  those  poetic 
airs  that  linger  in  the  mind  long  after  being  heard.  As  he 
listened  to  Vanda,  Godefroid  at  first  looked  at  her ;  but  he 
could  not  bear  the  ecstatic  eyes  of  this  remnant  of  a  woman, 
now  half-crazed,  and  he  gazed  at  some  tassels  that  hung  on 
each  side  of  the  top  of  the  bed. 

"Ah,  ha!"  said  Vanda,  laughing  at  Godefroid's  evident 
curiosity,  "  you  are  wondering  what  those  are  for?" 

"Vanda,  Vanda,  be  calm,  my  child  !  See,  here  comes  the 
tea.  This,  monsieur,  is  a  very  expensive  contrivance,"  he 
said  to  Godefroid.  "  My  daughter  cannot  raise  herself,  nor 


182  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

can  she  remain  in  bed  without  its  being  made  and  the  sheets 
changed.  Those  cords  work  over  pulleys,  and  by  slipping  a 
sheet  of  leather  under  her  and  attaching  it  by  rings  at  the 
corners  to  those  ropes,  we  can  lift  her  without  fatiguing  her 
or  ourselves." 

"  Yes,  I  am  carried  up — up  !  "  said  Vanda  deliriously. 

Auguste  happily  came  in  with  a  teapot,  which  he  set  on  a 
little  table,  where  he  also  placed  the  Sevres  tray,  covered  with 
sandwiches  and  cakes.  Then  he  brought  in  the  cream  and 
butter.  This  diverted  the  sick  woman's  mind ;  she  had  been 
on  the  verge  of  an  attack. 

"  Here,  Vanda,  is  Nathan's  last  novel.  If  you  should  lie 
awake  to-night,  you  will  have  something  to  read." 

"  '  La  Perle  de  Dol !  '—The  Pearl  of  Deceit.  That  will  be 
a  love-story  no  doubt.  Auguste,  what  do  you  think  ?  I  am 
to  have  a  melodeon  !  " 

Auguste  raised  his  head  quickly,  and  looked  strangely  at 
his  grandfather. 

"  You  see  how  fond  he  is  of  his  mother  !  "  Vanda  went  on. 
"  Come  and  kiss  me,  dear  rogue.  No,  it  is  not  your  grand- 
father that  you  must  thank,  but  Monsieur  Godefroid ;  our 
kind  neighbor  promises  to  borrow  one  for  me  to-morrow 
morning.  What  is  it  like,  monsieur?" 

Godefroid,  at  a  nod  from  the  old  man,  gave  a  long  descrip- 
tion of  the  melodeon  while  enjoying  the  tea  Auguste  had 
made,  which  was  of  superior  quality  and  delicious  flavor. 

At  about  half-past  ten  the  visitor  withdrew,  quite  over- 
powered by  the  frantic  struggle  maintained  by  the  father  and 
son,  while  admiring  their  heroism  and  the  patience  that 
enabled  them,  day  after  day,  to  play  two  equally  exhausting 
parts. 

"Now,"  said  Monsieur  Bernard,  accompanying  him  to  his 
own  door,  "  now  you  know  the  life  I  lead  !  At  every  hour  I 
have  to  endure  the  alarms  of.  a  robber,  on  the  alert  for  every- 
thing. One  word,  one  look  might  kill  my  daughter.  One 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY.  183 

toy  removed  from  those  she  is  accustomed  to  see  about  her 
would  reveal  everything  to  her,  for  mind  sees  through  walls." 

"Monsieur,"  said  Godefroid,  "on  Monday  Halpersohn 
will  pronounce  his  opinion  on  your  daughter,  for  he  is  at 
home  again.  I  doubt  whether  science  can  restore  her  frame." 

"Oh,  I  do  not  count  upon  it,"  said  the  old  man  with  a 
sigh.  "  If  they  will  only  make  her  life  endurable.  I  trusted 
to  your  tact,  monsieur,  and  I  want  to  thank  you,  for  you  un- 
derstood. Ah!  the  attack  has  come  on  !  "  cried  he,  hearing  a 
scream.  "  She  has  done  too  much " 

He  pressed  Godefroid's  hand  and  hurried  away. 

At  eight  next  morning  Godefroid  knocked  at  the  famous 
doctor's  door.  He  was  shown  up  by  the  servant  to  a  room 
on  the  second  floor  of  the  house,  which  he  had  had  time  to 
examine  while  the  porter  found  the  manservant. 

Happily,  Godefroid's  punctuality  had  saved  him  the  vexa- 
tion of  waiting,  as  he  had  hoped  it  might.  He  was  evidently 
the  first-comer.  He  was  led  through  a  very  plain  anteroom 
into  a  large  study,  where  he  found  an  old  man  in  a  dressing- 
gown,  smoking  a  long  pipe.  The  dressing-gown,  of  black 
moreen,  was  shiny  with  wear,  and  dated  from  the  time  of  the 
Polish  dispersion. 

"What  can  I  do  to  serve  you?"  said  the  Jew,  "for  you 
are  not  ill." 

And  he  fixed  Godefroid  with  a  look  that  had  all  the  sharp 
inquisitiveness  of  the  Polish  Jew,  eyes  which  seemed  to  have 
ears. 

To  Godefroid's  great  surprise,  Halpersohn  was  a  man  of 
fifty-six,  with  short  bow-legs  and  a  broad,  powerful  frame. 
There  was  an  Oriental  stamp  about  the  man,  and  his  face 
must  in  youth  have  been  singularly  handsome;  the  remains 
showed  a  markedly  Jewish  nose,  as  long  and  as  curved  as  a 
Damascus  scimitar.  His  forehead  was  truly  Polish,  broad 
and  lofty,  wrinkled  all  over  like  crumpled  paper,  and  recall 


184  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

ing  that  of  a  Saint-Joseph  by  some  old  Italian  master.  His 
eyes  were  sea-green,  set  like  a  parrot's  in  puckered  gray  lids, 
and  expressive  of  cunning  and  avarice  in  the  highest  degree. 
His  mouth,  thin  and  straight,  like  a  cut  in  his  face,  lent  this 
sinister  countenance  a  crowning  touch  of  suspiciousness. 

The  pale,  lean  features — for  Halpersohn  was  extraordinarily 
thin — were  crowned  by  ill-kept  gray  hair,  and  graced  by  a 
very  thick,  long  beard,  black  streaked  with  white,  that  hid 
half  his  face,  so  that  only  the  forehead  and  eyes,  the  cheek- 
bones, nose,  and  lips  were  visible. 

This  man,  a  friend  of  the  agitator  Lelewel,  wore  a  black 
velvet  cap  that  came  down  in  a  point  on  his  forehead  and 
showed  off  its  mellow  hue,  worthy  of  Rembrandt's  brush. 

The  doctor,  who  subsequently  became  equally  famous  for 
his  talents  and  his  avarice,  startled  Godefroid  by  his  question, 
and  the  young  man  asked  himself:  "Can  he  take  me  fora 
thief?" 

The  reply  to  the  question  was  evident  on  the  doctor's  table 
and  chimney-piece.  Godefroid  had  fancied  himself  the  first- 
comer — he  was  the  last.  His  patients  had  laid  very  handsome 
sums  on  the  table  and  shelf,  for  Godefroid  saw  piles  of  twenty 
and  forty-franc  pieces  and  two  thousand-franc  notes.  Was  all 
this  the  fruit  of  a  single  morning  ?  He  greatly  doubted  it, 
and  he  suspected  an  ingenious  trick.  The  infallible  but 
money-loving  doctor  perhaps  tried  thus  to  encourage  his 
patients'  liberality,  and  to  make  his  rich  clients  believe  that 
he  was  given  bank-notes  as  if  they  were  curl-papers. 

Mo'ise  Halpersohn  was  no  doubt  largely  paid,  for  he  cured 
his  patients,  and  cured  them  of  those  very  complaints  which 
the  profession  gave  up  in  despair.  It  is  very  little  known  in 
Western  Europe  that  the  Slav  nations  possess  a  store  of  medical 
secrets.  They  have  a  number  of  sovereign  remedies  derived 
from  their  intercourse  with  the  Chinese,  the  Persians,  the 
Cossacks,  the  Turks,  and  the  Tartars.  Some  peasant  women, 
regarded  as  witches,  have  been  known  to  completely  cure 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY.  185 

hydrophobia  in  Poland  with  the  juice  of  certain  plants. 
There  is  among  those  nations  a  great  mass  of  uncodified  in- 
formation as  to  the  effects  of  certain  herbs  and  the  powdered 
bark  of  trees,  which  is  handed  down  from  family  to  family, 
and  miraculous  cures  are  effected  thereby. 

Halpersohn,  who  for  five  or  six  years  was  regarded  as  a 
charlatan,  with  his  powders  and  mixtures,  had  the  innate  in- 
stinct of  a  great  healer.  Not  only  was  he  learned,  he  had 
observed  with  great  care,  and  had  traveled  all  over  Germany, 
Russia,  Persia,  and  Turkey,  where  he  had  picked  up  much 
traditional  lore ;  and  as  he  was  learned  in  chemistry,  he  be- 
came a  living  encyclopedia  of  the  secrets  preserved  by  "  the 
good  women,"  as  they  were  called,  the  midwives  and  "wise 
women  "  of  every  country  whither  he  had  followed  his  father, 
a  wandering  trader. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  the  scene  in  "  Richard  in 
Palestine,"  in  which  Saladin  cures  the  King  of  England,  is 
pure  fiction.  Halpersohn  has  a  little  silk  bag,  which  he  soaks 
in  water  till  it  is  faintly  colored,  and  certain  fevers  yield  to 
this  infusion  taken  by  the  patient.  The  virtues  residing  in 
plants  are  infinitely  various,  according  to  him,  and  the  most 
terrible  maladies  admit  of  cure.  He,  however,  like  his 
brother  physicians,  pauses  sometimes  before  the  incomprehen- 
sible. Halpersohn  admires  the  invention  of  Homoeopathy, 
less  for  its  medical  system  than  for  its  therapeutics ;  he  was 
at  that  time  in  correspondence  with  Hedenius  of  Dresden, 
Chelius  of  Heidelberg,  and  the  other  famous  Germans,  but 
keeping  his  own  hand  dark  though  it  was  full  of  discoveries. 
He  would  have  no  pupils. 

The  setting  of  this  figure,  which  might  have  stepped  out  of 
a  picture  by  Rembrandt,  was  quite  in  harmony  with  it.  The 
study,  hung  with  green  flock  paper,  was  poorly  furnished 
with  a  green  divan.  The  carpet,  also  of  moss  green,  showed 
the  thread.  A  large  armchair  covered  with  black  leather,  for 
the  patients,  stood  near  the  window,  which  was  hung  with 


186  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTOR  Y. 

green  curtains.  The  doctor's  seat  was  a  study-chair  with 
arms,  in  the  Roman  style,  of  mahogany  with  a  green  leather 
seat.  Beside  the  mantel  and  the  long  table  at  which  he 
wrote,  there  was  in  the  middle  of  the  wall  opposite  the  fire- 
place a  common  iron  chest  supporting  a  clock  of  Vienna 
granite,  on  which  stood  a  bronze  group  of  Love  sporting  with 
Death,  the  gift  of  a  famous  German  sculptor  whom  Halper- 
sohn  had,  no  doubt,  cured.  A  tazza  between  two  candle- 
sticks was  all  the  ornament  of  the  mantel.  Two  bracket 
shelves,  one  at  each  end  of  the  divan,  served  to  place  trays 
on,  and  Godefroid  noted  that  there  were  silver  bowls  on 
them,  water-bottles,  and  table-napkins. 

This  simplicity,  verging  on  bareness,  struck  Godefroid,  who 
took  everything  in  at  a  glance,  and  he  recovered  his  presence 
of  mind. 

"  I  am  perfectly  well,  monsieur.  I  have  not  come  to  con- 
sult you  myself,  but  on  behalf  of  a  lady  whom  you  ought  long 
since  to  have  seen — a  lady  living  on  the  Boulevard  du  Mont- 
Parnasse." 

"  Oh,  yes,  that  lady  has  sent  her  son  to  me  several  times. 
Well,  monsieur,  tell  her  to  come  to  see  me." 

"  Tell  her  to  come  !  "  cried  Godefroid  indignantly.  "Why, 
monsieur,  she  cannot  be  lifted  from  her  bed  to  a  sofa ;  she  has 
to  be  raised  by  straps." 

"You  are  not  a  doctor?"  asked  the  Jew,  with  a  singular 
grimace  which  made  his  face  look  even  more  wicked. 

"  If  Baron  de  Nucingen  sent  to  tell  you  that  he  was  ill 
and  to  ask  you  to  visit  him,  would  you  reply,  '  Tell  him  to 
come  to  me?'  " 

"  I  should  go  to  him,"  said  the  Jew  drily,  as  he  spat  into  a 
Dutch  spittoon  of  mahogany  filled  with  sand. 

"You  would  go  to  him,"  Godefroid  said  mildly,  "  because 
the  baron  has  two  millions  a  year,  and " 

"  Nothing  else  has  to  do  with  the  matter.     I  should  go." 

"Very  well,  monsieur,  you  may  come  and  see  the  lady  on 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY.  187 

the  Boulevard  du  Mont-Parnasse  for  the  same  reason.  Though 
I  have  not  such  a  fortune  as  the  Baron  de  Nucingen,  I  am  here 
to  tell  you  that  you  can  name  your  own  price  for  the  cure,  or, 
if  you  fail,  for  your  care  of  her.  I  am  prepared  to  pay  you  in 
advance.  But  how  is  it,  monsieur,  that  you,  a  Polish  exile,  a 
communist,  I  believe,  will  make  no  sacrifice  for  the  sake  of 
Poland  !  For  this  lady  is  the  granddaughter  of  General  Tar- 
lovski,  Prince  Poniatowski's  friend " 

"  Monsieur,  you  came  to  ask  me  to  prescribe  for  this  lady, 
and  not  to  give  me  your  advice.  In  Poland  I  am  a  Pole ;  in 
Paris  a  Parisian.  Every  one  does  good  in  his  own  way,  and 
you  may  believe  me  when  I  tell  you  that  the  greed  attributed 
to  me  has  its  good  reasons.  The  money  I  accumulate  has  its 
uses ;  it  is  sacred.  I  sell  health  ;  rich  persons  can  pay  for  it, 
and  I  make  them  buy  it.  The  poor  have  their  physicians.  If 
I  had  no  aim  in  view,  I  should  not  practice  medicine.  I  live 
soberly,  and  I  spend  my  time  in  rushing  from  one  to  another ; 
I  am  by  nature  lazy,  and  I  used  to  be  a  gambler.  You  may 
draw  your  own  conclusions,  young  man !  You  are  not  old 
enough  to  judge  the  aged !  " 

Godefroid  kept  silence. 

"You  live  with  the  granddaughter  of  the  foolhardy  soldier 
who  had  no  courage  but  for  fighting,  and  who  betrayed  his 
country  to  Catherine  II.?" 

"  Yes,  monsieur." 

"Then  be  at  home  on  Monday  at  three  o'clock,"  said  he, 
laying  down  his  pipe  and  taking  up  his  note-book,  in  which  he 
wrote  a  few  words.  "When  I  call  you  will  please  to  pay  me 
two  hundred  francs  j  then,  if  I  undertake  to  cure  her,  you  will 
give  me  a  thousand  crowns.  I  have  been  told,"  he  went 
on,  "  that  the  lady  is  shrunken  as  if  she  had  fallen  in  the 
fire." 

"It  is  a  case,  monsieur,  if  you  will  believe  the  first  physi- 
cians of  Paris,  of  nervous  disease,  with  symptoms  so  strange 
that  no  one  can  imagine  them  who  has  not  seen  them." 


188  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY. 

"Ah,  yes,  now  I  remember  the  details  given  me  by  that 
little  fellow.  Till  to-morrow,  monsieur." 

Godefroid  left  with  a  bow  to  this  singular  and  extraordinary 
man.  There  was  nothing  about  him  to  show  or  suggest  a 
medical  man,  not  even  in  that  bare  consulting-room,  where 
the  only  article  of  furniture  that  was  at  all  remarkable  was 
the  ponderous  chest,  made  by  Huret  or  Fichet. 

Godefroid  reached  the  Passage  Vivienne  in  time  to  purchase 
a  splendid  melodeon  before  the  store  was  closed,  and  he 
dispatched  it  forthwith  to  Monsieur  Bernard,  whose  address 
he  gave. 

Then  he  went  to  the  Rue  Chanoinesse,  passing  along  the 
Quai  des  Augustins,  where  he  hoped  still  to  find  a  bookseller's 
store  open ;  he  was,  in  fact,  so  fortunate,  and  had  a  long  con- 
versation on  the  prime  cost  of  law-books,  with  the  young 
clerk  in  charge. 

He  found  Madame  de  la  Chanterie  and  her  friends  just 
come  in  from  high  mass,  and  he  answered  her  first  inquiring 
glance  with  a  significant  shake. 

"And  our  dear  Father  Alain  is  not  with  you?  "  said  he. 

"He  will  not  be  here  this  Sunday,"  replied  Madame  de  la 
Chanterie.  "  You  will  not  find  him  here  till  this  day  week, 
unless  you  go  to  the  place  where  you  know  you  can  meet 
him." 

"  Madame,"  said  Godefroid,  in  an  undertone,  "  you  know 
I  am  less  afraid  of  him  than  of  these  gentlemen,  and  I 
intended  to  confess  to  him." 

"And  I?" 

"  Oh,  you — I  will  tell  you  everything,  for  I  have  many 
things  to  say  to  you.  As  a  beginning,  I  have  come  upon  the 
most  extraordinary  case  of  destitution,  the  strangest  union  of 
poverty  and  luxury,  and  figures  of  a  sublimity  which  outdoes 
the  inventions  of  our  most  admired  romancers." 

"  Nature,  and  especially  moral  nature,  is  always  as  far  above 
art  as  God  is  above  His  creatures.  But  come,"  said  Madame 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  189 

de  la  Chanterie,  "and  tell  me  all  about  your  expedition  into 
the  unknown  lands  where  you  made  your  first  venture." 

Monsieur  Nicolas  and  Monsieur  Joseph — for  the  Abb6  de 
Veze  had  remained  for  a  few  minutes  at  Notre-Dame — left 
Madame  de  la  Chanterie  alone  with  Godefroid ;  and  he,  fresh 
from  the  emotions  he  had  gone  through  the  day  before,  related 
every  detail  with  the  intensity,  the  gesticulation,  and  the 
eagerness  that  come  of  the  first  impression  produced  by  such 
a  scene  and  its  accessories  of  men  and  things.  He  had  a 
success  too ;  for  Madame  de  la  Chanterie,  calm  and  gentle  as 
she  was,  and  accustomed  to  look  into  gulfs  of  suffering,  shed 
tears. 

"You  did  right,"  said  she,  "  to  send  the  melodeon." 

"  I  wish  I  could  have  done  much  more,"  replied  Godefroid, 
"  since  this  is  the  first  family  through  whom  I  have  known  the 
pleasures  of  charity ;  I  want  to  secure  to  this  noble  old  man 
the  chief  part  of  the  profits  on  his  great  work.  I  do  not 
know  whether  you  have  enough  confidence  in  me  to  enable 
me  to  undertake  such  a  business.  From  the  information  I 
have  gained,  it  would  cost  about  nine  thousand  francs  to  bring 
out  an  edition  of  fifteen  hundred  copies,  and  their  lowest 
selling  value  would  be  twenty-four  thousand  francs.  As  we 
must,  in  the  first  instance,  pay  off  the  three  thousand  and 
odd  francs  that  have  been  advanced  on  the  manuscript,  we 
should  have  to  risk  twelve  thousand  francs. 

"Oh,  madame !  if  you  could  but  imagine  how  bitterly,  as 
I  made  my  way  hither  from  the  Quai  des  Augustins,  I  rued 
having  so  foolishly  wasted  my  little  fortune.  The  Genius  of 
Charity  appeared  to  me,  as  it  were,  and  filled  me  with  the 
ardor  of  a  neophyte ;  I  desire  to  renounce  the  world,  to  live 
the  life  of  these  gentlemen,  and  to  be  worthy  of  you.  Many 
a  time  during  the  past  two  days  have  I  blessed  the  chance 
that  brought  me  to  your  house.  I  will  obey  you  in  every 
particular  till  you  judge  me  worthy  to  join  the  brotherhood." 

"Well,"  said  Madame  de  la  Chanterie  very  seriously,  after 


190  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

a  few  minutes  of  reflection,  "listen  to  me,  I  have  important 
things  to  say  to  you.  You  have  been  fascinated,  my  dear 
boy,  by  the  poetry  of  misfortune.  Yes,  misfortune  often  has 
a  poetry  of  its  own  ;  for,  to  me,  poetry  is  a  certain  exaltation 
of  feeling,  and  suffering  is  feeling.  We  live  so  much  through 
suffering !  " 

"Yes,  madame,  I  was  captured  by  the  demon  of  curiosity. 
How  could  I  help  it !  I  have  not  yet  acquired  the  habit  of 
seeing  into  the  heart  of  these  unfortunate  lives,  and  I  cannot 
set  out  with  the  calm  resolution  of  your  three  pious  soldiers  of 
the  Lord.  But  I  may  tell  you,  it  was  not  till  I  had  quelled 
this  incitement  that  I  devoted  myself  to  your  work." 

"  Listen,  my  very  dear  son,"  said  Madame  de  la  Chanterie, 
saying  the  words  with  a  saintly  sweetness  which  deeply  touched 
Godefroid,  "we  have  forbidden  ourselves  absolutely — and 
this  is  no  exaggeration,  for  we  do  not  allow  ourselves  even  to 
think  of  what  is  forbidden — we  have  forbidden  ourselves  ever 
to  embark  in  a  speculation.  To  print  a  book  for  sale,  and 
looking  for  a  return,  is  business,  and  any  transaction  of  that 
kind  would  involve  us  in  the  difficulties  of  trade.  To  be 
sure,  it  looks  in  this  case  very  feasible,  and  even  necessary. 
Do  you  suppose  that  it  is  the  first  instance  of  the  kind  that 
has  come  before  us?  Twenty  times,  a  hundred  times,  we  have 
seen  how  a  family,  a  concern,  could  be  saved.  But,  then, 
what  should  we  have  become  in  undertaking  matters  of  this 
kind  ?  We  should  be  simply  a  trading  firm.  To  be  a  sleep- 
ing partner  with  the  unfortunate  is  not  work;  it  is  only  help- 
ing misfortune  to  work.  In  a  few  days  you  may  meet  with 
even  harder  cases  than  this;  will  you  do  the  same  thing? 
You  would  be  overwhelmed. 

"Remember,  for  one  thing,  that  the  house  of  Mongenod, 
for  a  year  past,  has  ceased  to  keep  our  accounts.  Quite  half 
of  your  time  will  be  taken  up  by  keeping  our  books.  There 
are,  at  this  time,  nearly  two  thousand  persons  in  our  debt  in 
Paris ;  and  of  those  who  may  repay  us,  at  any  rate,  it  is  neces- 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  191 

sary  that  we  should  check  the  amounts  they  owe  us.  We 
never  sue — we  wait.  We  calculate  that  half  of  the  money 
given  out  is  utterly  lost.  The  other  half  sometimes  returns 
doubled. 

"Now,  suppose  this  lawyer  were  to  die,  the  twelve  thou- 
sand francs  would  be  badly  invested  !  But  if  his  daughter 
recovers,  if  his  grandson  does  well,  if  he  one  day  gets  another 
appointment — then,  if  he  has  any  sense  of  honor,  he  will  re- 
member the  debt,  and  return  the  funds  of  the  poor  with 
interest.  Do  you  know  that  more  than  one  family,  raised 
from  poverty  and  started  by  us  on  the  road  to  fortune  by 
considerable  loans  without  interest,  has  saved  for  the  poor 
and  returned  us  sums  of  double  and,  sometimes,  treble  the 
amount? 

"This  is  our  only  form  of  speculation. 

"In  the  first  place,  as  to  this  case  which  interests  you, 
and  ought  to  interest  you,  consider  that  the  sale  of  the  lawyer's 
book  depends  on  its  merits ;  have  you  read  it  ?  Then,  even 
if  the  work  is  excellent,  how  many  excellent  books  have  re- 
mained two  or  three  years  without  achieving  the  success  they 
deserved.  How  many  a  wreath  is  laid  on  a  tomb  !  And,  as 
I  know,  publishers  have  ways  of  driving  bargains  and  taking 
their  charges,  which  make  the  business  one  of  the  most  risky 
and  the  most  difficult  to  disentangle  of  all  in  Paris.  Monsieur 
Nicolas  can  tell  you  about  these  difficulties,  inherent  in  the 
nature  of  book-making.  So,  you  see,  we  are  prudent;  we 
have  ample  experience  of  every  kind  of  misery,  as  of  every 
branch  of  trade,  for  we  have  been  long  studying  Paris.  The 
Mongenods  give  us  much  help ;  they  are  a  light  to  our  path, 
and  through  them  we  know  that  the  Bank  of  France  is  always 
suspicious  of  the  book-trade,  though  it  is  a  noble  trade — but 
it  is  badly  conducted. 

"As  to  the  four  thousand  francs  needed  to  save  this  noble 
family  from  the  horrors  of  indigence,  I  will  give  you  the 
money  ;  for  the  poor  boy  and  his  grandfather  must  be  fed 


192  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

and  decently  dressed.  There  are  sorrows,  miseries,  wounds, 
which  we  bind  up  at  once  without  inquiring  whom  it  is  that  we 
are  helping ;  religion,  honor,  character,  are  not  inquired  into  ; 
but  as  soon  as  it  is  a  case  of  lending  the  money  belonging  to 
the  poor  to  assist  the  unfortunate  under  the  more  active  form 
of  industry  or  trade,  then  we  require  some  guarantee,  and  are 
as  rigid  as  the  money-lenders.  So,  for  all  beyond  this  imme- 
diate relief,  be  satisfied  with  finding  the  most  honest  publisher 
for  the  old  man's  book.  This  is  a  matter  for  Monsieur  Nicolas. 
He  is  acquainted  with  lawyers  and  professors  and  authors  of 
works  on  jurisprudence ;  next  Saturday  he  will,  no  doubt,  be 
prepared  with  some  good  advice  for  you. 

"  Be  easy  ;  the  difficulty  will  be  surmounted  if  possible.  At 
the  same  time,  it  might  be  well  if  Monsieur  Nocolas  could 
read  the  magistrate's  book;  if  you  can  persuade  him  to 
lend  it." 

Godefroid  was  amazed  at  this  woman's  sound  sense,  for  he 
had  believed  her  to  be  animated  solely  by  the  spirit  of  charity. 
He  knelt  on  one  knee  and  kissed  one  of  her  beautiful  hands, 
saying — 

"  Then  you  are  Reason,  too  !  " 

"  In  our  work  we  have  to  be  everything,"  said  she,  with  the 
peculiar  cheerfulness  of  a  true  saint. 

There  was  a  brief  silence,  broken  by  Godefroid,  who  ex- 
claimed— 

"Two  thousand  debtors,  did  you  say,  madame?  Two 
thousand  accounts  !  It  is  tremendous  !  " 

"  Two  thousand  accounts,  which  may  lead,  as  I  have  told 
you,  to  our  being  repaid  from  the  delicate  honor  of  the  bor- 
rowers. But  there  are  three  thousand  more — families  who 
will  never  make  us  any  return  but  in  thanks.  Thus,  as  I  have 
told  you,  we  feel  that  it  is  necessary  to  keep  books ;  and  if 
your  secrecy  is  above  suspicion,  you  will  be  our  financial 
oracle.  We  ought  to  keep  a  day-book,  a  ledger,  a  book  of 
current  expenses,  and  a  cash-book.  Of  course,  we  have  re- 


THE   SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  193 

ceipts,  notes  of  hand,  but  it  takes  a  great  deal  of  time  to  look 
for  them Here  come  the  gentlemen." 

Godefroid,  at  first  serious  and  thoughtful,  took  little  part  in 
the  conversation  ;  he  was  bewildered  by  the  revelation  Mad- 
ame de  la  Chanterie  had  just  imparted  to  him  in  a  way  which 
showed  that  she  meant  it  to  be  the  reward  of  his  zeal. 

"  Two  thousand  families  indebted  to  us  !  "  said  he  to  him- 
self. "Why,  if  they  all  cost  as  much  as  Monsieur  Bernard 
will  cost  us,  we  must  have  millions  sown  broadcast  in  Paris !" 

This  reflection  was  one  of  the  last  promptings  of  the  worldly 
spirit  which  was  fast  dying  out  in  Godefroid.  As  he  thought 
the  matter  over,  he  understood  that  the  united  fortunes  of 
Madame  de  la  Chanterie,  of  Messieurs  Alain,  Nicolas,  Joseph, 
and  Judge  Popinot,  with  the  gifts  collected  by  the  Abbe  de 
Veze,  and  the  loans  from  the  Mongenods,  must  have  produced 
a  considerable  capital ;  also,  that  in  twelve  or  fifteen  years  this 
capital,  with  the  interest  paid  on  it  by  those  who  had  shown 
their  gratitude,  must  have  increased  like  a  snowball,  since  the 
charitable  holders  took  nothing  from  it.  By  degrees  he  began 
to  see  clearly  how  the  immense  affair  was  managed,  and  his 
wish  to  cooperate  was  increased. 

At  nine  o'clock  he  was  about  to  return  on  foot  to  the 
Boulevard  du  Mont-Parnasse ;  but  Madame  de  la  Chanterie, 
distrustful  of  so  lonely  a  neighborhood,  insisted  on  his  taking 
a  cab.  As  he  got  out  of  the  vehicle,  though  the  shutters  were 
so  closely  fastened  that  not  a  gleam  of  light  was  visible,  Gode- 
froid heard  the  sound  of  the  instrument ;  and  Auguste,  who, 
no  doubt,  was  watching  for  Godefroid's  return,  half  opened 
the  door  on  the  landing,  and  said — 

"  Mamma  would  very  much  like  to  see  you,  and  my  grand- 
father begs  you  will  take  a  cup  of  tea." 

Godefroid  went  in  and  found  the  invalid  transfigured  by  the 
pleasure  of  the  music ;  her  face  beamed  and  her  eyes  sparkled 
like  diamonds. 
13 


194  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

"I  ought  to  have  waited  for  you,  to  let  you  hear  the  first 
chords ;  but  I  flew  at  this  little  organ  as  a  hungry  man  rushes 
on  a  banquet.  But  you  have  a  soul  to  understand  me,  and  I 
know  I  am  forgiven." 

Vanda  made  a  sign  to  her  son,  who  placed  himself  where 
he  could  press  the  pedal  that  supplied  the  interior  of  the  in- 
strument with  wind ;  and,  with  her  eyes  raised  to  heaven  like 
Saint  Cecilia,  the  invalid,  whose  hands  had  for  a  time  recov- 
ered their  strength  and  agility,  performed  some  variations  on 
the  prayer  in  "  Mose"*  which  her  son  had  bought  for  her. 
She  had  composed  them  in  a  few  hours.  Godefroid  discerned 
in  her  a  talent  identical  with  that  of  Chopin.  It  was  a  soul 
manifesting  itself  by  divine  sounds  in  which  sweet  melancholy 
predominated. 

Monsieur  Bernard  greeted  Godefroid  with  a  look  expressing 
a  sentiment  long  since  in  abeyance.  If  the  tears  had  not  been 
for  ever  dried  up  in  the  old  man  scorched  by  so  many  fierce 
sorrows,  his  eyes  would  at  this  moment  have  been  wet. 

The  old  lawyer  was  fingering  his  snuff-box  and  gazing  at  his 
daughter  with  unutterable  rapture. 

"To-morrow,  madame,"  said  Godefroid,  when  the  music 
had  ceased,  "your  fate  will  be  sealed,  for  I  have  good  news 
for  you.  The  famous  Halpersohn  will  come  at  three  o'clock. 
And  he  has  promised,"  he  added  in  Monsieur  Bernard's  ear, 
"  to  tell  me  the  truth." 

The  old  man  rose,  and  taking  Godefroid  by  the  hand,  led 
him  into  a  corner  of  the  room  near  the  fireplace.  He  was 
trembling. 

"  What  a  night  lies  before  me  !  It  is  the  final  sentence  !  " 
said  he  in  a  whisper.  "  My  daughter  will  be  cured  or  con- 
demned !  " 

"Take  courage,"  said  Godefroid,  "and  after  tea  come  to 
my  rooms  !  " 

"  Cease  playing,  my  child,"  said  Monsieur  Bernard  ;  "you 
*  Anglice :  "  Moses  in  Egypt." 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  195 

will  bring  on  an  attack.     Such  an  expenditure  of  strength  will 
be  followed  by  a  reaction." 

He  made  Auguste  remove  the  instrument,  and  brought  his 
daughter  her  cup  of  tea  with  the  coaxing  ways  of  a  nurse  who 
wants  to  anticipate  the  impatience  of  a  baby. 

"And  what  is  this  doctor  like?"  asked  she,  already  diverted 
by  the  prospect  of  seeing  a  stranger. 

Vanda,  like  all  prisoners,  was  consumed  by  curiosity.  When 
the  physical  symptoms  of  her  complaint  gave  her  some  respite, 
they  seemed  to  develop  in  her  mind,  and  then  she  had  the 
strangest  whims  and  violent  caprices.  She  wanted  to  see 
Rossini,  and  cried  because  her  father,  who  could,  she  imagined, 
do  everything,  assured  her  he  could  not  bring  him. 

Godefroid  gave  her  a  minute  description  of  the  Jewish 
physician  and  his  consulting-room,  for  she  knew  nothing  of 
the  steps  taken  by  her  father.  Monsieur  Bernard  had  enjoined 
silence  on  his  grandson  as  to  his  visits  to  Halpersohn;  he  had 
so  much  feared  to  excite  hopes  which  might  not  be  realized. 
Vanda  seemed  to  hang  on  the  words  that  fell  from  Godefroid's 
lips ;  she  was  spellbound  and  almost  crazy,  so  ardent  did  her 
desire  become  to  see  the  strange  Pole. 

"Poland  has  produced  many  singular  and  mysterious  fig- 
ures," said  the  old  lawyer.  "Just  now,  for  instance,  beside 
this  doctor  there  is  Hoe'ne  Vronski,  the  mathematician  and 
seer,  Mickievicz,  the  poet,  the  inspired  Tovianski,  and  Chopin 
with  his  superhuman  talent.  Great  national  agitations  always 
produce  these  crippled  giants." 

"  Oh,  my  dear  papa,  what  a  man  you  are  !  If  you  were  to 
write  down  all  that  we  hear  you  say  simply  to  entertain  me, 
you  would  make  a  fortune  !  For,  would  you  believe  me, 
monsieur,  my  kind  old  father  invents  tales  for  me  when  I  have 
no  more  novels  to  read,  and  so  sends  me  to  sleep.  His  voice 
lulls  me,  and  he  often  soothes  my  pain  with  his  cleverness. 
Who  will  ever  repay  him  ?  Auguste,  my  dear  boy,  you  ought 
to  kiss  your  grandfather's  footprints  for  me." 


196  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY. 

The  youth  looked  at  his  mother  with  his  fine  eyes  full  of 
tears;  and  that  look,  overflowing  with  long-repressed  com- 
passion, was  a  poem  in  itself.  Godefroid  rose,  took  Auguste's 
hand,  and  pressed  it  warmly.' 

"God  has  given  you  two  angels  for  your  companions, 
madame  !  "  he  exclaimed. 

"  Indeed  I  know  it.  And  I  blame  myself  for  so  often  pro- 
voking them.  Come,  dear  Auguste,  and  kiss  your  mother. 
He  is  a  son,  monsieur,  of  whom  any  mother  would  be  proud. 
He  is  as  good  as  gold,  candid — a  soul  without  sin ;  but  a 
rather  too  impassioned  creature,  like  his  mamma.  God  has 
nailed  me  to  my  bed  to  preserve  me,  perhaps,  from  the  follies 
women  commit — when  they  have  too  much  heart!"  she 
ended  with  a  smile. 

Godefroid  smiled  in  reply  and  bowed  good-night. 

"Good-night,  monsieur;  and  be  sure  to  thank  your  friend, 
for  he  has  made  a  poor  cripple  very  happy." 

"Monsieur,"  said  Godefroid  when  he  was  in  his  rooms, 
alone  with  Monsieur  Bernard,  who  had  followed  him,  "I 
think  I  may  promise  you  that  you  shall  not  be  robbed  by 
those  three  sharpers.  I  can  get  the  required  sum,  but  you 
must  place  the  papers  proving  the  loan  in  my  hands.  If  I 
am  to  do  anything  more,  you  should  allow  me  to  have  your 
book — not  to  read  myself,  for  I  am  not  learned  enough  to 
judge  of  it,  but  to  be  read  by  an  old  lawyer  I  know,  a  man 
of  unimpeachable  integrity,  who  will  undertake,  according  to 
the  character  of  the  work,  to  find  a  respectable  firm  with 
whom  you  may  deal  on  equitable  terms.  On  this,  however, 
I  do  not  insist. 

"Meanwhile,  here  are  five  hundred  francs,"  he  went  on, 
offering  a  note  to  the  astonished  lawyer,  "  to  supply  your 
more  pressing  wants.  I  ask  for  no  receipt ;  you  will  be 
indebted  on  no  evidence  but  that  of  your  conscience,  and 
your  conscience  may  lie  silent  till  you  have  to  some  extent  re- 
covered yourself.  I  will  settle  with  Halpersohn." 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  197 

"  But  who  are  you?"  asked  the  old  man,  sinking  on  to  a 
chair. 

"I,"  replied  Godefroid,  "am  nobody;  but  I  serve  certain 
powerful  persons  to  whom  your  necessities  are  now  made  known, 
and  who  take  an  interest  in  you.  Ask  no  more." 

"And  what  motive  can  these  persons  have ?" 

"Religion,  monsieur,"  replied  Godefroid. 

"  Is  it  possible  ?     Religion  !  " 

"Yes,  the  Catholic,  Apostolic,  Roman  religion." 

"  Then  you  are  of  the  Order  of  Jesus  ?  " 

"No,  monsieur,"  said  Godefroid.  "Be  perfectly  easy. 
No  one  has  any  design  on  you  beyond  that  of  helping  you 
and  restoring  your  family  to  comfort." 

"  Can  philanthropy  then  wear  any  guise  but  that  of 
vanity?" 

"  Nay,  monsieur,  do  not  insult  holy  Catholic  Love,  the  vir- 
tue described  by  Saint  Paul !  "  cried  Godefroid  eagerly. 

At  this  reply  Monsieur  Bernard  began  to  stride  up  and 
down  the  room. 

"I  accept!"  he  suddenly  said.  "And  I  have  but  one 
way  of  showing  my  gratitude — that  is,  by  intrusting  you  with 
my  work.  The  notes  and  quotations  are  unnecessary  to  a 
lawyer ;  and  I  have,  as  I  told  you,  two  months'  work  before 
me  yet  in  copying  them  out.  To-morrow,  then,"  and  he 
shook  hands  with  Godefroid. 

"Can  I  have  effected  a  conversion?"  thought  Godefroid, 
struck  by  the  new  expression  he  saw  on  the  old  man's  face 
as  he  had  last  spoken. 

Next  day,  at  three  o'clock,  a  hackney  coach  stopped  at  the 
door,  and  out  of  it  stepped  Halpersohn,  buried  in  a  vast  bear- 
skin coat.  The  cold  had  increased  in  the  course  of  the  night, 
and  the  thermometer  stood  at  ten  degrees  below  freezing. 

The  Jewish  doctor  narrowly  though  furtively  examined  the 
room  in  which  his  visitor  of  yesterday  received  him,  and 
Godefroid  detected  a  gleam  of  suspicion  sparkling  in  his  eye 


198  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

like  the  point  of  a  dagger.  This  swift  flash  of  doubt  gave 
Godefroid  an  internal  chill ;  he  began  to  think  that  this  man 
would  be  merciless  in  his  money  dealings ;  and  it  is  so  natural 
to  think  of  genius  as  allied  to  goodness,  that  this  gave  him  an 
impulse  of  disgust. 

"  Monsieur,"  said  he,  "  I  perceive  that  the  plainness  of  my 
lodgings  arouses  your  uneasiness ;  so  you  will  not  be  surprised 
at  my  manner  of  proceeding.  Here  are  your  two  hundred 
francs,  and  here,  you  see,  are  three  notes  for  a  thousand 
francs  each" — and  he  drew  out  the  notes  which  Madame  de 
la  Chanterie  had  given  him  to  redeem  Monsieur  Bernard's 
manuscript.  "  If  you  have  any  further  doubts  as  to  my  solv- 
ency, I  may  refer  you,  as  a  guarantee  for  the  carrying  out  of 
my  pledge,  to  Messrs.  Mongenod,  the  bankers,  Rue  de  la 
Victoire." 

"I  know  them,"  said  Halpersohn,  slipping  the  ten  gold- 
pieces  into  his  pocket. 

"And  he  will  go  there  !  "  thought  Godefroid. 

"And  where  does  the  sick  lady  live?"  asked  the  doctor, 
rising,  as  a  man  who  knows  the  value  of  time. 

"  Come  this  way,  monsieur,"  said  Godefroid,  going  first  to 
show  him  the  way. 

The  Jew  cast  a  shrewd  and  scrutinizing  glance  on  the 
rooms  he  went  through,  for  he  had  the  eye  of  a  spy;  and  he 
was  able  to  see  the  misery  of  poverty  through  the  door  into 
Monsieur  Bernard's  bedroom,  for,  unluckily,  Monsieur  Ber- 
nard had  just  been  putting  on  the  dress  in  which  he  always 
showed  himself  to  his  daughter,  and  in  his  haste  to  admit  his 
visitors  he  left  the  door  of  his  kennel  ajar. 

He  bowed  with  dignity  to  Halpersohn,  and  softly  opened 
his  daughter's  bedroom  door. 

"  Vanda,  my  dear,  here  is  the  doctor,"  he  said. 

He  stood  aside  to  let  Halpersohn  pass,  still  wrapped  in  his 
furs. 

The  Jew  was  surprised  at  the  splendor  of  this  room,  which 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  199 

in  this  part  of  the  town  seemed  anomalous;  but  his  astonish- 
ment was  of  no  long  duration,  for  he  had  often  seen  in  the 
houses  of  German  and  Polish  Jews  a  similar  discrepancy  be- 
tween the  display  of  extreme  penury  and  concealed  wealth. 
While  walking  from  the  door  to  the  bed  he  never  took  his 
eyes  off  the  sufferer  ;  and  when  he  stood  by  her  side,  he  said 
to  her  in  Polish — 

"Are  you  a  Pole?" 

"  I  am  not ;  my  mother  was." 

"  Whom  did  your  grandfather,  General  Tarlovski,  marry?" 

"A  Pole." 

"  Of  what  province  ?  " 

"  A  Sobolevska  of  Pinsk." 

"  Good.     And  this  gentleman  is  your  father  ?  " 

"Yes,  monsieur." 
•   "Monsieur,"  said  Halpersohn,  "is  your  wife " 

"She  is  dead,"  replied  Monsieur  Bernard. 

"Was  she  excessively  fair?"  said  Halpersohn,  with  some 
impatience  at  the  interruption. 

"Here  is  a  portrait  of  her,"  replied  Monsieur  Bernard, 
taking  down  a  handsome  frame  containing  several  good 
miniatures. 

Halpersohn  was  feeling  the  invalid's  head  and  hair,  while 
he  looked  at  the  portrait  of  Vanda  Tarlovski  nee  Comtesse 
Sobolevska. 

"  Tell  me  the  symptoms  of  the  patient's  illness."  And  he 
seated  himself  in  the  armchair,  gazing  steadily  at  Vanda  dur- 
ing twenty  minutes,  while  the  father  and  daughter  spoke  by 
turns. 

"And  how  old  is  the  lady?" 

"Eight-and-thirty." 

"  Very  good  !  "  he  said  as  he  rose.  "  Well,  I  undertake  to 
cure  her.  I  cannot  promise  to  give  her  the  use  of  her  legs, 
but  she  can  be  cured.  Only,  she  must  be  placed  in  a  private 
hospital  in  my  part  of  the  town." 


200  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY. 

11  But,  monsieur,  my  daughter  cannot  be  moved — 

"  I  will  answer  for  her  life,"  said  Halpersohn  sententiously. 
"  But  I  answer  for  her  only  on  those  conditions.  Do  you 
know  she  will  exchange  her  present  symptoms  for  another  hor- 
rible form  of  disease,  which  will  last  for  a  year  perhaps,  or  six 
months  at  the  very  least  ?  You  can  come  to  see  her,  as  you 
are  her  father." 

"And  it  is  certain  ?"  asked  Monsieur  Bernard. 

"  Certain,"  repeated  the  Jew.  ' '  You  daughter  has  a  vicious 
humor,  a  national  disorder,  in  her  blood,  and  it  must  be 
brought  out.  When  you  bring  her,  carry  her  to  the  Rue 
Basse-Saint-Pierre  at  Chaillot — Dr.  Halpersohn's  private  hos- 
pital." 

"But  how?" 

"  On  a  stretcher,  as  the  sick  people  are  always  carried  to  a 
hospital." 

"But  it  will  kill  her  to  be  moved." 

"No." 

And  Halpersohn,  as  he  spoke  this  curt  No,  was  at  the  door, 
where  Godefroid  met  him  on  the  landing. 

The  Jew,  who  was  suffocating  with  heat,  said  in  his  ear — 

"  The  charge  will  be  fifteen  francs  a  day,  beside  the  thousand 
crowns;  three  months  paid  in  advance." 

"Very  good,  monsieur.  And,"  asked  Godefroid,  standing 
on  the  step  of  the  cab  into  which  the  doctor  had  hurried, 
"  you  answer  for  the  cure  ?  " 

"Positively,"  said  the  Pole.  "Are  you  in  love  with  the 
lady?" 

"No,"  said  Godefroid. 

"You  must  not  repeat  what  I  am  about  to  tell  you,  for  I 
am  saying  it  only  to  prove  to  you  that  I  am  sure  of  the  cure ; 
but  if  you  say  anything  about  it,  you  will  be  the  death  of  the 
woman " 

Godefroid  replied  only  by  a  gesture. 

"  For  seventeen  years  she  has  been  suffering  from  the  disease 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  201 

known  as  Plica  Polonica,  which  can  produce  all  these  tor- 
ments ;  I  have  seen  the  most  dreadful  cases.  Now,  I  am  the 
only  man  living  who  knows  how  to  bring  out  the///V#  in  such 
a  form  as  to  be  curable,  for  not  every  one  gets  over  it.  You 
see,  monsieur,  that  I  am  really  very  liberal.  If  this  were  some 
great  lady — a  Baronne  de  Nucingen  or  any  other  wife  or 
daughter  of  some  modern  Croesus — I  should  get  a  hundred — 
two  hundred  thousand  francs  for  this  cure — whatever  I  might 
like  to  ask  !  However,  that  is  a  minor  misfortune." 

"And  moving  her?  " 

"  Oh,  she  will  seem  to  be  dying,  but  she  will  not  die  of  it ! 
She  may  live  a  hundred  years  when  once  she  is  cured.  Now, 
Jacques,  quick — Rue  Monsieur,  and  make  haste  !  "  said  he  to 
the  driver. 

He  left  Godefroid  standing  in  the  street,  where  he  gazed  in 
bewilderment  after  the  retreating  cab. 

"Who  on  earth  is  that  queer-looking  man  dressed  in  bear- 
skin ?  "  asked  Madame  Vauthier,  whom  nothing  could  escape. 
"  Is  it  true,  as  the  hackney  coachman  said,  that  he  is  the  most 
famous  doctor  in  Paris?  " 

"And  what  can  that  matter  to  you,  Mother  Vauthier?"  he 
asked. 

"  Oh,  not  at  all,"  said  she  with  a  sour  face. 

"You  made  a  great  mistake  in  not  siding  with  me,"  said 
Godefroid,  as  he  slowly  went  into  the  house.  "You  would 
have  done  better  than  by  sticking  to  Monsieur  Barbet  and 
Monsieur  Metivier;  you  will  get  nothing  out  of  them." 

"And  am  I  on  their  side?"  retorted  she  with  a  shrug. 
"  Monsieur  Barbet  is  my  landlord,  that  is  all." 

It  took  two  days  to  persuade  Monsieur  Bernard  to  part  from 
his  daughter  and  carry  her  to  Chaillot.  Godefroid  and  the  old 
lawyer  walked  all  the  way,  one  on  each  side  of  the  stretcher, 
screened  in  with  striped  blue-and-white  ticking,  on  which  the 
precious  patient  lay,  almost  tied  down  to  the  mattress,  so 
greatly  did  her  father  fear  the  convulsions  of  a  nervous  attack. 


202  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY. 

However,  having  set  out  at  three  o'clock,  the  procession 
reached  the  private  hospital  at  five,  when  it  was  dusk.  Gode- 
froid  paid  the  four  hundred  and  fifty  francs  demanded  for  the 
three  months'  board,  and  took  a  receipt  for  it ;  then,  when 
he  went  down  to  pay  the  two  porters,  Monsieur  Bernard 
joined  him  and  took  from  under  the  mattress  a  very  volumi- 
nous sealed  packet,  which  he  handed  to  Godefroid. 

"  One  of  these  men  will  fetch  you  a  cab,"  said  he,  "  for  you 
cannot  carry  those  four  volumes  very  far.  This  is  my  book  ; 
place  it  in  my  censor's  hands;  I  will  leave  it  with  him  for  a 
week.  I  shall  remain  at  least  a  week  in  this  neighborhood, 
for  I  cannot  abandon  my  daughter  to  her  fate.  I  know  my 
grandson  ;  he  can  mind  the  house,  especially  with  you  to  help 
him;  and  I  commend  him  to  your  care.  If  I  were  myself 
what  once  I  was,  I  would  ask  you  my  critic's  name ;  for  if 
he  was  once  a  magistrate,  there  were  few  whom  I  did  not 
know " 

"It  is  no  mystery,"  said  Godefroid,  interrupting  Monsieur 
Bernard.  "  Since  you  show  such  entire  confidence  in  me,  I 
may  tell  you  that  the  reader  is  the  President  Lecamus  de 
Tresnes." 

"  Oh,  of  the  Supreme  Court  in  Paris.  Take  it — by  all 
means.  He  is  one  of  the  noblest  men  of  our  time.  He  and 
the  late  Judge  Popinot,  the  judge  of  the  lower  court,  were 
lawyers  worthy  of  the  best  days  of  the  old  Parlements.  All 
my  fears,  if  I  had  any,  must  vanish.  And  where  does  he  live? 
I  should  like  to  go  and  thank  him  when  he  has  taken  so  much 
trouble." 

"You  will  find  him  in  the  Rue  Chanoinesse,  under  the 
name  of  Monsieur  Nicolas.  I  am  just  going  there.  But  your 
agreement  with  those  rascals?" 

"  Auguste  will  give  it  you,"  said  the  old  man,  going  back 
into  the  hospital. 

A  cab  was  found  on  the  Quai  de  Billy  and  brought  by  one 
of  the  men ;  Godefroid  got  in  and  stimulated  the  driver  by 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  203 

the  promise  of  drink  money  if  he  drove  quickly  to  the  Rue 
Chanoinesse,  where  he  intended  to  dine. 

Half  an  hour  after  Vanda's  removal,  three  men,  dressed  in 
black,  were  let  in  by  Madame  Vauthier  at  the  door  in  the 
Rue  Notre-Dame  des  Champs,  where  they  had  been  waiting, 
•no  doubt,  till  the  coast  should  be  clear.  They  went  upstairs 
under  the  guidance  of  the  Judas  in  petticoats,  and  gently 
knocked  at  Monsieur  Bernard's  door.  As  it  happened  to  be 
a  Thursday,  the  young  collegian  was  at  home.  He  opened 
the  door,  and  three  men  slipped  like  shadows  into  the  outer 
room. 

"  What  do  you  want,  gentlemen  ?"  asked  the  youth. 

"This  is  Monsieur  Bernard's — that  is  to  say,  Monsieur  le 
Baron ?" 

"  But  what  do  you  want  here?" 

"  Oh,  you  know  that  pretty  well,  young  man,  for  your 
grandfather  has  just  gone  off  with  a  closed  litter,  I  am  told. 
Well,  that  does  not  surprise  us ;  he  shows  his  wisdom.  I  am 
a  bailiff,  and  I  have  come  to  seize  everything  here.  On  Mon- 
day last  you  were  summoned  to  pay  three  thousand  francs  and 
the  expenses  to  Monsieur  Metivier,  under  penalty  of  imprison- 
ment ;  and  as  a  man  who  has  grown  onions  knows  the  smell 
of  chives,  the  debtor  has  taken  the  key  of  the  fields  rather 
than  wait  for  that  of  the  lock-up.  However,  if  we  cannot 
secure  him,  we  can  get  a  wing  or  a  leg  of  his  gorgeous  furni- 
ture— for  we  know  all  about  it,  young  man,  and  we  are  going 
to  make  an  official  report." 

"  Here  are  some  stamped  papers  that  your  grandpapa  would 
never  take,"  said  the  widow  Vauthier,  shoving  three  writs 
into  Auguste's  hand. 

"  Stay  here,  ma'am  ;  we  will  put  you  in  possession.  The 
law  gives  you  forty  sous  a  day  ;  it  is  not  to  be  sneezed  at." 

"  Ah,  ha  !  Then  I  shall  see  what  there  is  in  the  grand  bed- 
room! "  cried  Madame  Vauthier. 


204  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

"  You  shall  not  go  into  my  mother's  room  !  "  cried  the  lad 
in  a  fury,  as  he  flung  himself  between  the  door  and  the  three 
men  in  black. 

On  a  sign  from  their  leader,  the  two  men  and  a  lawyer's 
clerk  who  came  in  seized  Auguste. 

"  No  resistance,  young  man  ;  you  are  not  master  here.  We 
shall  draw  up  a  charge,  and  you  will  spend  the  night  in  the 
lock-up." 

At  this  dreadful  threat,  Auguste  melted  into  tears. 

"Oh,  what  a  mercy,"  cried  he,  "that  mamma  is  gone! 
This  would  have  killed  her  !  " 

The  men  and  the  bailiff  now  held  a  sort  of  council  with  the 
widow  Vauthier.  Auguste  understood,  though  they  talked  in 
a  low  voice,  that  what  they  chiefly  wanted  was  to  seize  his 
grandfather's  precious  manuscripts,  so  he  opened  the  bedroom 
door. 

"Walk  in  then,  gentlemen,"  said  he,  "but  spoil  nothing. 
You  will  be  paid  to-morrow  morning."  Then,  still  in  tears, 
he  went  into  his  own  squalid  room,  snatched  up  all  his  grand- 
father's notes,  and  stuffed  them  into  the  stove,  where  he  knew 
that  there  was  not  a  spark  of  fire. 

The  thing  was  done  so  promptly  that  the  bailiff,  though  he 
was  keen  and  cunning,  and  worthy  of  his  employers  Barbel 
and  Metivier,  found  the  boy  in  tears  on  a  chair  when  he 
rushed  into  the  room,  having  concluded  that  the  manuscripts 
would  not  be  in  the  anteroom.  Though  books  and  manu- 
scripts may  not  legally  be  seized  for  debt,  the  lien  signed  by 
the  old  lawyer  in  this  case  justified  the  proceeding.  Still,  it 
would  have  been  easy  to  find  means  of  delaying  the  distraint, 
as  Monsieur  Bernard  would  certainly  have  known.  Hence 
the  necessity  for  acting  with  cunning. 

The  widow  Vauthier  had  been  an  invaluable  ally  to  her 
landlord  by  failing  to  serve  his  notices  on  her  lodger;  her 
plan  was  to  throw  them  on  him  when  entering  at  the  heels  of 
the  officers  of  justice ;  or,  if  necessary,  to  declare  to  Monsieur 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY.  205 

Bernard  that  she  had  supposed  them  to  be  intended  for  the 
two  writers  who  had  been  absent  for  two  days. 

The  inventory  of  the  goods  took  above  an  hour  to  make 
out,  for  the  bailiff  would  omit  nothing,  and  regarded  the 
value  as  sufficient  to  pay  off  the  debts. 

As  soon  as  the  officers  were  gone,  the  poor  youth  took  the 
writs  and  hurried  away  to  find  his  grandfather  at  Halpersohn's 
hospital ;  for,  as  the  bailiff  assured  him  that  Madame  Vauthier 
was  responsible  for  everything  under  heavy  penalties,  he  could 
leave  the  place  without  fear. 

The  idea  of  his  grandfather  being  taken  to  prison  for  debt 
drove  the  poor  boy  absolutely  mad — mad  in  the  way  in  which 
the  young  are  mad ;  that  is  to  say,  a  victim  to  the  dangerous 
and  fatal  excitement  in  which  every  energy  of  youth  is  in  a 
ferment  and  may  lead  to  the  worst  as  to  the  most  heroic  ac- 
tions. 

When  poor  Auguste  reached  the  Rue  Basse-Saint-Pierre,  the 
doorkeeper  told  him  that  he  did  not  know  what  had  become 
of  the  father  of  the  patient  brought  in  at  five  o'clock,  but  that 
by  Monsieur  Halpersohn's  orders  no  one — not  even  her  father 
— was  to  be  allowed  to  see  the  lady  for  a  week,  or  it  might 
endanger  her  life. 

This  reply  put  a  climax  to  Auguste's  desperation.  He  went 
back  again  to  the  Boulevard  du  Mont-Par nasse,  revolving  the 
most  extravagant  schemes  as  he  went.  He  got  home  by  about 
half-past  eight,  almost  starving,  so  exhausted  by  hunger  and 
grief,  that  he  accepted  when  Madame  Vauthier  invited  him  to 
share  her  supper,  consisting  of  a  stew  of  mutton  and  potatoes. 
The  poor  boy  dropped  half-dead  into  a  chair  in  the  dreadful 
woman's  room. 

Encouraged  by  the  old  woman's  coaxing  and  insinuating 
words,  he  answered  a  few  cunningly  arranged  questions  about 
Godefroid,  and  gave  her  to  understand  that  it  was  he  who  would 
pay  off  his  grandfather's  debts  on  the  morrow,  and  that  to 
him  they  owed  the  improvement  that  had  taken  place  in  their 


206  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

prospects  during  the  past  week.  The  widow  listened  to  all 
this  with  an  affectation  of  doubt,  plying  Auguste  with  a  few 
glasses  of  wine. 

At  ten  o'clock  the  wheels  of  a  cab  were  heard  to  stop  in 
front  of  the  house,  and  the  woman  exclaimed — 

"  Oh,  there  is  Monsieur  Godefroid  !  " 

Auguste  took  the  key  of  his  rooms  and  went  upstairs  to  see 
the  kind  friend  of  the  family;  but  he  found  Godefroid  so 
entirely  unlike  himself,  that  he  hesitated  to  speak  till  the 
thought  of  his  grandfather's  danger  spurred  the  generous 
youth. 

This  is  what  had  happened  in  the  Rue  Chanoinesse,  and 
had  caused  Godefroid's  stern  expression  of  countenance. 

The  neophyte,  arriving  in  good  time,  had  found  Madame 
de  la  Chanterie  and  her  adherents  in  the  drawing-room,  and 
he  had  taken  Monsieur  Nicolas  aside  to  deliver  to  him  the 
"Spirit  of  the  Modern  Laws."  Monsieur  Nicolas  at  once 
carried  the  sealed  parcel  to  his  room,  and  came  down  to 
dinner.  Then,  after  chatting  during  the  first  part  of  the 
evening,  he  went  up  again,  intending  to  begin  reading  the 
work. 

Godefroid  was  greatly  surprised  when,  a  few  minutes  after, 
Manon  came  from  the  old  judge  to  beg  him  to  go  up  to  speak 
with  him.  Following  Manon,  he  was  led  to  Monsieur 
Nicolas'  room  ;  but  he  could  pay  no  attention  to  its  details, 
so  greatly  was  he  startled  by  the  evident  distress  of  a  man 
usually  so  placid  and  firm. 

"Did  you  know,"  said  Monsieur  Nicolas,  quite  the  judge 
again,  "  the  name  of  the  author  of  this  work?  " 

"  Monsieur  Bernard,"  said  Godefroid.  "  I  know  him  only 
by  that  name.  I  did  not  open  the  parcel " 

"True,"  said  Monsieur  Nicolas.  "I  broke  the  seals 
myself.  And  you  made  no  inquiry  as  to  his  previous 
history?" 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  207 

"  No.  I  know  that  he  married  for  love  the  daughter  of 
General  Tarlovski,  that  his  daughter  is  named  Vanda  after  her 
mother,  and  his  grandson  Auguste.  And  the  portrait  I  saw 
of  Monsieur  Bernard  is,  I  believe,  in  the  dress  of  a  presiding 
judge — a  red  gown." 

"Look  here !"  said  Monsieur  Nicolas,  and  held  out  the 
title  of  the  work  in  Auguste's  handwriting,  and  in  the  follow- 
ing form : 

THE    SPIRIT 
OF  THE   MODERN   LAWS 

BY 

M.    BERNARD-JEAN-BAPTISTE   MACLOUD 
BARON   BOURLAC 

Formerly  Attorney-General  to  the  High  Court  of  Justice  at  Rouen 
Commander  of  the  Legion  of  Honor. 

"  Oh  !  The  man  who  condemned  madame,  her  daughter, 
and  the  Chevalier  du  Vissard  !  '  said  Godefroid  in  a  choked 
voice. 

His  knees  gave  way,  and  the  neophyte  dropped  on  to  a 
chair. 

"  What  a  beginning  !  "  he  murmured. 

"  This,  my  dear  Godefroid,  is  a  business  that  comes  home 
to  us  all.  You  have  done  your  part ;  we  must  deal  with  it 
now  !  I  beg  you  to  do  nothing  further  of  any  kind  ;  go  and 
fetch  whatever  you  left  in  your  rooms  ;  and  not  a  word  !  In 
fact,  absolute  silence.  Tell  Baron  Bourlac  to  apply  to  me. 
Between  this  and  then,  we  shall  have  decided  how  it  will  be 
best  to  act  in  such  circumstances." 

Godefroid  went  downstairs,  called  a  hackney  cab,  and  hur- 
ried back  to  the  Boulevard  du  Mont-Parnasse,  filled  with  hor- 
ror as  he  thought  of  the  examination  and  trials  of  Caen,  of 


208  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

the  hideous  drama  that  ended  on  the  scaffold,  and  of  Madame 
de  la  Chanterie's  sojourn  in  Bicetre.  He  understood  the 
neglect  into  which  this  lawyer,  almost  a  second  Fouquier- 
Tinville,  had  fallen  in  his  old  age,  and  the  reasons  why  he  so 
carefully  concealed  his  name. 

"  I  hope  Monsieur  Nicolas  will  take  some  terrible  revenge 
for  poor  Madame  de  la  Chanterie  !  " 

He  had  just  thought  out  this  not  very  Christian  wish,  when 
he  saw  Auguste. 

"  What  do  you  want  of  me  ?  "  asked  Godefroid. 

"  My  dear  sir,  a  misfortune  has  befallen  us  which  is  turning 
my  brain  !  Some  scoundrels  have  been  here  to  take  posses- 
sion of  everything  belonging  to  my  mother,  and  they  are 
hunting  for  my  grandfather  to  put  him  into  prison.  But  it  is 
not  by  reason  of  these  disasters  that  I  turn  to  you  for  help," 
said  the  lad  with  Roman  pride  ;  "  it  is  to  beg  you  to  do  me 
such  a  service  as  you,  any  one,  would  do  to  a  condemned 
criminal " 

"Speak,"  said  Godefroid. 

"They  wanted  to  get  hold  of  my  grandfather's  manuscripts; 
and  as  I  believe  he  placed  the  work  in  your  hands,  I  want  to 
beg  you  to  take  the  notes,  for  the  woman  will  not  allow  me  to 
remove  a  thing.  Put  them  with  the  volumes,  and  then " 

"Very  well,"  said  Godefroid,  "make  haste  and  fetch 
them." 

While  the  lad  went  off,  to  return  immediately,  Godefroid 
reflected  that  the  poor  boy  was  guilty  of  no  crime,  that  he 
must  not  break  his  heart  by  telling  him  about  his  grandfather, 
or  the  desertion  which  was  the  punishment  in  his  sad  old  age 
of  the  passions  of  his  political  career  ;  he  took  the  packet  not 
unkindly. 

"What  is  your  mother's  name?"  he  asked. 

"My  mother,  monsieur,  is  the  Baronne  de  Mergi.  My 
father  was  the  son  of  the  presiding  judge  of  the  Supreme 
Court  at  Rouen." 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY.  209 

"Ah  !  "  said  Godefroid,  "so  your  grandfather  married  his 
daughter  to  the  son  of  the  famous  Judge  Mergi?" 

"Yes,  monsieur." 

"Leave  me,  my  little  friend,"  said  Godefroid. 

He  went  out  on  to  the  landing  with  the  young  Baron  de 
Mergi,  and  called  Madame  Vauthier. 

"  Mother  Vauthier,"  said  he,  "  you  can  relet  my  rooms  ;  I 
am  never  coming  back  again." 

And  he  went  down  to  the  cab. 

"  Have  you  intrusted  anything  to  that  gentleman?"  asked 
the  widow  of  Auguste. 

"Yes,"  said  the  lad. 

"You're  a  pretty  fool.  He  is  one  of  your  enemies'  agents. 
He  has  been  at  the  bottom  of  it  all,  you  may  be  sure.  It  is 
proof  enough  that  the  trick  has  turned  out  all  right  that  he 
never  means  to  come  back.  He  told  me  I  could  let  his 
rooms." 

Auguste  flew  out,  and  down  the  boulevard,  running  after 
the  cab,  and  at  last  succeeded  in  stopping  it  by  his  shouts 
and  cries. 

"  What  is  it  ?  "  asked  Godefroid. 

"  My  grandfather's  manuscripts  !  " 

"Tell  him  to  apply  for  them  to  Monsieur  Nicolas." 

The  lad  took  this  reply  as  the  cruel  jest  of  a  thief  who  has 
no  shame  left ;  he  sat  down  in  the  snow  as  he  saw  the  cab  set 
off  again  at  a  brisk  trot. 

He  rose  in  a  fever  of  fierce  energy  and  went  home  to  bed, 
worn  out  with  rushing  about  Paris,  and  quite  heart-broken. 

Next  morning,  Auguste  de  Mergi  awoke  to  find  himself 
alone  in  the  rooms  where  yesterday  his  mother  and  his  grand- 
father had  been  with  him,  and  he  went  through  all  the  miseries 
of  his  position,  of  which  he  fully  understood  the  extent.  The 
utter  desertion  of  the  place,  hitherto  so  amply  filled,  where 
every  minute  had  brought  with  it  a  duty  and  an  occupation, 
was  so  painful  to  him,  that  he  went  down  to  ask  the  widow 
14 


210  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY. 

Vauthier  whether  his  grandfather  had  come  in  during  the 
night  or  early  morning ;  for  he  himself  had  slept  very  late, 
and  he  supposed  that  if  the  Baron  Bourlac  had  come  home 
the  woman  would  have  warned  him  against  his  pursuers. 
She  replied,  with  a  sneer,  that  he  must  know  full  well  where 
to  look  for  his  grandfather  ;  for  if  he  had  not  come  in,  it  was 
evident  that  he  had  taken  up  his  abode  in  the  "Chateau  de 
Clichy."  This  impudent  irony  from  the  woman  who,  the 
day  before,  had  cajoled  him  so  effectually,  again  drove  the 
poor  boy  to  frenzy,  and  he  flew  to  the  private  hospital  in 
the  Rue  Basse-Saint-Pierre,  in  despair,  as  he  thought  of  his 
grandfather  in  prison. 

Baron  Bourlac  had  hung  about  all  night  in  front  of  the 
hospital  which  he  was  forbidden  to  enter,  or  close  to  the  house 
of  Doctor  Halpersohn,  whom  he  naturally  wished  to  call  to 
account  for  this  conduct.  The  doctor  did  not  get  home  till 
two  in  the  morning.  The  old  man,  who,  at  half-past  one,  had 
been  at  the  doctor's  door,  had  just  gone  off  to  walk  in  the 
Champs-Elyse'es,  and  when  he  returned  at  half-past  two  the 
gatekeeper  told  him  that  Monsieur  Halpersohn  was  now  in 
bed  and  asleep,  and  was  on  no  account  to  be  disturbed. 

Here,  alone,  at  half-past  two  in  the  morning,  the  unhappy 
father,  in  utter  despair,  paced  the  quay,  and  under  the  trees 
loaded  with  frost,  of  the  sidewalks  of  the  Cours-la-Reine,  wait- 
ing for  the  day. 

At  nine  o'clock  he  presented  himself  at  the  doctor's,  and 
asked  him  why  he  thus  kept  his  daughter  under  lock  and  key. 

"Monsieur,"  said  Halpersohn,  "I  yesterday  made  myself 
answerable  for  your  daughter's  recovery ;  and  at  this  moment 
I  am  responsible  for  her  life,  and  you  must  understand  that  in 
such  a  case  I  must  have  sovereign  authority.  I  may  tell  you 
that  your  daughter  yesterday  took  a  remedy  which  will  bring 
out  the  plica,  that  till  the  disease  is  brought  out  the  lady 
must  remain  invisible.  I  will  not  allow  myself  to  lose  my 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  211 

patient  or  you  to  lose  your  daughter  by  exposing  her  to  any 
excitement,  any  error  of  treatment ;  if  you  really  insist  on 
seeing  her,  I  shall  demand  a  consultation  of  three  medical 
men  to  protect  myself  against  any  responsibility,  as  the  patient 
might  die." 

The  old  man,  exhausted  with  fatigue,  had  dropped  on  to  a 
chair ;  he  quickly  rose,  however,  saying — : 

"Forgive  me,  monsieur;  I  have  spent  the  night  in  mortal 
anguish,  for  you  cannot  imagine  how  much  I  love  my  daugh- 
ter, whom  I  have  nursed  for  fifteen  years  between  life  and 
death,  and  this  week  of  waiting  is  torture  to  me." 

The  baron  left  Halpersohn's  study,  tottering  like  a  drunken 
man,  the  doctor  giving  him  his  arm  to  the  top  of  the  stairs. 

About  an  hour  later,  he  saw  Auguste  de  Mergi  walk  into  his 
room.  On  questioning  the  lodge-keeper  of  the  private  hos- 
pital, the  poor  lad  had  just  heard  that  the  father  of  the  lady 
admitted  the  day  before  had  called  again  in  the  evening,  had 
asked  for  her,  and  had  spoken  of  going  early  in  the  day  to 
Doctor  Halpersohn,  who,  no  doubt,  would  know  something 
about  him.  At  the  moment  when  Auguste  de  Mergi  appeared 
in  the  doctor's  room,  Halpersohn  was  breakfasting  off  a  cup 
of  chocolate  and  a  glass  of  water,  all  on  a  small  round  table  ; 
he  did  not  disturb  himself  for  the  youth,  but  went  on  soaking 
his  strip  of  bread  in  the  chocolate ;  for  he  ate  nothing  but  a 
roll,  cut  into  four  with  an  accuracy  that  argued  some  skill  as 
an  operator.  Halpersohn  had,  in  fact,  practiced  surgery  in 
the  course  of  his  travels. 

"Well,  young  man,"  said  he  as  Vanda's  son  came  in, 
"you,  too,  have  come  to  require  me  to  account  for  your 
mother?" 

"  Yes,  monsieur,"  said  Auguste. 

The  young  fellow  had  come  forward  as  far  as  the  large  table, 
and  his  eye  was  immediately  caught  by  several  bank-notes  lying 
among  the  little  piles  of  gold-pieces.  In  the  position  in  which 
the  unhappy  boy  found  himself,  the  temptation  was  stronger 


212  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY. 

than  his  principles,  well  grounded  as  they  were.  He  saw 
before  him  the  means  of  rescuing  his  grandfather,  and  saving 
the  fruits  of  twenty  years'  labor  imperiled  by  avaricious  specu- 
lators. He  fell.  The  fascination  was  as  swift  as  thought,  and 
justified  itself  by  an  idea  of  self-immolation  that  smiled  on  the 
boy.  He  said  to  himself — 

"I  shall  be  done  for,  but  I  shall  save  my  mother  and  my 
grandfather." 

Under  this  stress  of  antagonism  between  his  reason  and  the 
impulse  to  crime,  he  acquired,  as  madmen  do,  a  strange  and 
fleeting  dexterity,  and  instead  of  asking  after  his  grandfather, 
he  listened  and  agreed  to  all  the  doctor  was  saying. 

Halpersohn,  like  all  acute  observers,  had  understood  the  whole 
past  history  of  the  father,  the  daughter,  and  her  son.  He  had 
scented  or  guessed  the  facts  which  Madame  de  Mergi's  con- 
versation had  confirmed,  and  he  felt  in  consequence  a  sort  of 
benevolence  toward  his  new  clients ;  as  to  respect  or  admira- 
tion, he  was  incapable  of  them. 

"Well,  my  dear  boy,"  said  he  familiarly,  "I  am  keeping 
your  mother  to  restore  her  to  you  young,  handsome,  and  in 
good  health.  Hers  is  one  of  those  rare  diseases  which  doctors 
find,  very  interesting  ;  and,  beside,  she  is,  through  her  mother, 
a  fellow-countrywoman  of  mine.  You  and  your  grandfather 
must  be  brave  enough  to  live  without  seeing  her  for  a  fortnight, 
and  Madame " 

"  La  Baronne  de  Mergi." 

"If  she  is  a  baroness,  you  are  Baron "  asked  Halper- 
sohn. 

At  this  moment  the  theft  was  effected.  While  the  doctor 
was  looking  at  his  bread,  heavy  with  chocolate,  Auguste 
snatched  up  four  folded  notes,  and  had  slipped  them  into  his 
trousers  pocket,  affecting  to  keep  his  hand  there  out  of  sheer 
embarrassment. 

"  Yes,  monsieur,  I  am  a  baron.  So,  too,  is  my  grandfather ; 
he  was  public  prosecutor  at  the  time  of  the  Restoration." 


THE   SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTOR  Y,  213 

"  You  blush,  young  man.  You  need  not  blush  because  you 
are  a  baron  and  poor — it  is  a  very  common  case." 

"And  who  told  you,  monsieur,  that  we  are  poor?" 

"Well,  your  grandfather  told  me  that  he  had  spent  the 
night  in  the  Champs-Elysees ;  and  though  I  know  no  palace 
where  there  is  so  fine  a  vault  overhead  as  that  which  was  glit- 
tering at  two  o'clock  this  morning,  it  was  cold,  I  can  tell  you, 
in  the  palace  where  your  grandfather  was  taking  his  airing.  A 
man  does  not  sleep  in  the  Hotel  de  la  Belle-Etoile  (open  air) 
by  preference." 

"  Has  my  grandfather  been  here?  "  cried  Auguste,  seizing 
the  opportunity  to  beat  a  retreat.  "  Thank  you,  monsieur. 
I  will  come  again,  with  your  permission,  of  course,  for  news 
of  my  mother." 

As  soon  as  he  got  out,  the  young  baron  went  off  to  the 
bailiffs  office,  taking  a  hackney  cab  to  get  there  the  sooner. 
The  man  gave  up  the  agreement,  and  the  bill  of  costs  duly 
receipted,  and  then  desired  the  young  man  to  take  one  of  the 
clerks  with  him  to  release  the  person  in  charge  from  her  func- 
tions. 

"And  as  Messrs.  Barbet  and  Metivier  live  in  your  part  of 
the  town,"  added  he,  "  my  boy  will  take  them  the  money 
and  desire  them  to  restore  you  the  deed  of  lien  on  the 
property." 

Auguste,  who  understood  nothing  of  these  phrases  and  for- 
malities, submitted.  He  received  seven  hundred  francs  in 
silver,  the  change  out  of  his  four  thousand-franc  notes,  and  went 
off  in  the  clerk's  company.  He  got  into  the  cab  in  a  state  of  in- 
describable bewilderment,  for,  the  end  being  achieved,  remorse 
was  making  itself  felt;  he  saw  himself  disgraced  and  cursed  by 
his  grandfather,  whose  austerity  was  well  known  to  him  ;  and 
he  believed  that  his  mother  would  die  of  grief  if  she  heard  of 
his  guilt.  All  nature  had  changed  before  his  eyes.  He  was 
lost ;  he  no  longer  saw  the  snow,  the  houses  looked  like 
ghosts. 


214  THE   SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

No  sooner  was  he  at  home  than  the  young  baron  decided 
on  his  course  of  action,  and  it  was  certainly  that  of  an  honest 
man.  He  went  into  his  mother's  room  and  took  the  diamond 
snuff-box  given  to  his  grandfather  by  the  Emperor  to  send  it 
with  the  seven  hundred  francs  to  Doctor  Halpersohn  with  the 
following  letter,  which  required  several  rough  copies  : 

"  MONSIEUR  : — The  fruits  of  twenty  years'  labor — my  grand- 
father's work — were  about  to  be  absorbed  by  some  money- 
lenders, who  threatened  him  with  imprisonment.  Three 
thousand  three  hundred  francs  were  enough  to  save  him ;  and 
seeing  so  much  gold  on  your  table,  I  could  not  resist  the  idea 
of  seeing  my  grandparent  free  by  thus  making  good  to  him 
the  earnings  of  his  long  toil.  I  borrowed  from  you,  without 
your  leave,  four  thousand  francs ;  but  as  only  three  thousand 
three  hundred  francs  were  needed,  I  send  you  the  remaining 
seven  hundred,  and  with  them  a  snuff-box  set  with  diamonds, 
given  by  the  Emperor  to  my  grandfather ;  this  will,  I  hope, 
indemnify  you. 

"  If  you  should  not  after  this  believe  that  I,  who  shall  all 
my  life  regard  you  as  my  benefactor,  am  a  man  of  honor,  if 
you  will  at  any  rate  preserve  silence  as  to  an  action  so  unjusti- 
fiable in  any  other  circumstances,  you  will  have  saved  my 
grandfather  as  you  will  save  my  mother,  and  I  shall  be  for  life 
your  devoted  slave. 

"AUGUSTE  DE  MERGI." 

At  about  half-past  two,  Auguste,  who  had  walked  to  the 
Champs-Elysees,  sent  a  messenger  on  to  deliver  at  Doctor 
Halpersohn's  door  a  sealed  box  containing  ten  louis,  a  five- 
hundred-franc  note,  and  the  snuff-box ;  then  he  slowly  went 
home  across  the  Pont  d'lena  by  the  Invalides  and  the  boule- 
vards, trusting  to  Doctor  Halpersohn's  generosity. 

The  physician,  who  had  at  once  discovered  the  theft,  had 
meanwhile  changed  his  views  as  to  his  clients.  He  supposed 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY.  215 

that  the  old  man  had  come  to  rob  him,  and,  not  having 
succeeded,  had  sent  this  boy.  He  put  no  credence  in  the 
rank  and  titles  they  had  assumed,  and  went  off  at  once  to  the 
public  prosecutor's  office  to  state  his  case,  and  desire  that 
immediate  steps  should  be  taken  for  the  prosecution. 

The  prudence  of  the  law  rarely  allows  of  such  rapid  pro- 
ceedings as  the  complaining  parties  would  wish  ;  but,  at  about 
three  in  che  afternoon,  a  police  officer,  followed  by  some 
detectives,  who  affected  to  be  lounging  on  the  boulevard,  was 
catechising  Madame  Vauthier  as  to  hei  lodgers,  and  the 
widow  quite  unconsciousl)  was  confirming  the  constable's 
suspicions. 

Nepomucene,  scenting  the  policeman,  thought  that  it  was 
the  old  man  they  wanted  ;  and  as  he  was  very  fond  of  Monsieur 
Auguste,  he  hurried  out  to  meet  Monsieur  Bernard,  whom  he 
intercepted  in  the  Avenue  de  1'Observatoire. 

"Make  your  escape,  monsieur,"  cried  he.  "They  have 
come  to  take  you.  The  bailiffs  were  in  yesterday  and  laid 
hands  on  everything.  Mother  Vauthier,  whc  had  hidden 
some  stamped  papers  of  yours,  said  you  would  be  in  Clichy 
by  last  night  or  this  morning.  There,  do  you  see  those 
sneaks?" 

The  old  judge  recognized  the  men  as  bailiffs,  and  he  under- 
stood everything. 

"And  Monsieur  Godefroid?"  he  asked. 

"  Gone,  never  to  come  back.  Mother  Vauthier  says  he  was 
a  spy  for  your  enemies." 

Monsieur  Bourlac  determined  that  he  would  go  at  once  to 
Barbet,  and  in  a  quarter  of  an  hour  he  was  there;  the  old 
bookseller  lived  in  the  Rue  Sainte-Catherine-d'Enfer. 

"Oh,  you  have  come  yourself  to  fetch  your  agreement," 
said  the  publisher,  bowing  to  his  victim.  "  Here  it  is,"  and, 
to  the  baron's  great  amazement,  he  handed  him  the  document, 
which  the  old  lawyer  took,  saying — 

"I  do  not  understand " 


216  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

" Then  it  was  not  you  who  paid  up? "  said  Barbet. 

"Are  you  paid?  " 

"Your  grandson  carried  the  money  to  the  bailiff  this 
morning." 

"And  is  it  true  that  you  took  possession  of  my  goods 
yesterday?" 

"Have  you  not  been  home  for  two  days?"  said  Barbet. 
"  Still,  a  retired  public  prosecutor  must  know  what  it  is  to  be 
threatened  with  imprisonment  for  debt !  " 

On  this  the  baron  bowed  coldly  to  Barbet,  and  returned 
home,  supposing  that  the  authorities  had  in  fact  come  in 
search  of  the  authors  living  on  the  upper  floor.  He  walked 
slowly,  absorbed  in  vague  apprehensions,  for  Nepomucene's 
warning  seemed  to  him  more  and  more  inexplicable.  Could 
Godefroid  have  betrayed  him?  He  mechanically  turned 
down  the  Rue  Notre-Dame  des  Champs,  and  went  in  by  the 
back  door,  which  happened  to  be  open,  running  against 
Nepomucene. 

"  Oh,  monsieur,  make  haste,  come  on ;  they  are  taking 
Monsieur  Auguste  to  prison;  they  caught  him  on  the  boule- 
vard ;  it  was  him  they  were  hunting — they  have  been  ques- 
tioning him " 

The  old  man,  with  a  spring  like  a  tiger's,  rushed  through 
the  house  and  garden  and  out  on  to  the  boulevard,  as  swift  as 
an  arrow,  and  was  just  in  time  to  see  his  grandson  get  into  a 
hackney  coach  between  three  men. 

"Auguste,"  he  cried,  "  what  is  the  meaning  of  this?" 

The  youth  burst  into  tears,  and  turned  faint. 

"Monsieur,"  said  he  to  the  police  officer,  whose  scarf 
struck  his  eye,  "  I  am  Baron  Bourlac,  formerly  a  public  prose- 
cutor; for  pity's  sake,  explain  the  matter." 

"Monsieur,  if  you  are  Baron  Bourlac,  you  will  understand 
it  in  two  words.  I  have  just  questioned  this  young  man,  and 
he  has  unfortunately  confessed " 

"What?" 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY.  217 

"  A  theft  of  four  thousand  francs  from  Doctor  Halpersohn." 

"  Auguste  !     Is  it  possible  ?  " 

"  Grandpapa,  I  have  sent  him  your  diamond  snuff-box  as  a 
guarantee.  I  wanted  to  save  you  from  the  disgrace  of  im- 
prisonment." 

"Wretched  boy,  what  have  you  done?"  cried  the  baron. 
"  The  diamonds  are  false ;  I  sold  the  real  stones  three  years 
ago." 

The  police  officer  and  his  clerk  looked  at  each  other  with 
strange  meaning.  This  glance,  full  of  suggestions,  was  seen 
by  the  baron,  and  fell  like  a  thunderbolt. 

"  Monsieur,"  said  he  to  the  officer,  "be  quite  easy;  I  will 
go  and  see  the  public  prosecutor;  you  can  testify  to  the  delu- 
sion in  which  I  have  kept  my  daughter  and  my  grandson. 
You  must  do  your  duty,  but,  in  the  name  of  humanity,  send 
my  grandson  to  a  cell  by  himself.  I  will  go  to  the  prison. 
Where  are  you  taking  him?  " 

"  Are  you  Baron  Bourlac?  "  said  the  constable. 

"Oh!     Monsieur " 

"  Because  the  public  prosecutor,  the  examining  judge,  and 
I  myself  could  not  believe  that  such  men  as  you  and  your 
grandson  could  be  guilty ;  like  the  doctor,  we  concluded  that 
some  swindlers  had  borrowed  your  names." 

He  took  the  baron  aside  and  said — 

"Were  you  at  Doctor  Halpersohn's  house  this  morning?" 

"Yes,  monsieur."  » 

"And  your  grandson  too,  about  half-an-hour  later?" 

"  I  know  nothing  about  that;  I  have  this  instant  come  in, 
and  I  have  not  seen  my  grandson  since  yesterday." 

"The  writs  he  showed  me  and  the  warrants  for  arrest  ex- 
plain everything,"  said  the  police  agent.  "I  know  his  mo- 
tive for  the  crime.  I  ought  indeed  to  arrest  you,  monsieur, 
as  abetting  your  grandson,  for  your  replies  confirm  the  facts 
alleged  by  the  complainant ;  but  the  notices  served  on  you, 
and  which  I  return  to  you,"  he  added,  holding  out  a  packet 


218  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

of  stamped  papers  which  he  had  in  his  hand,  "certainly  prove 
you  to  be  Baron  Bourlac.  At  the  same  time,  you  must  be 
prepared  to  be  called  up  before  Monsieur  Marest,  the  examin- 
ing judge  in  this  case.  I  believe  I  am  right  in  relaxing  the 
usual  rule  in  consideration  of  your  past  dignity. 

"As  to  your  grandson,  I  will  speak  of  him  to  the  public 
prosecutor  as  soon  as  I  go  in,  and  we  will  show  every  possible 
consideration  for  the  grandson  of  a  retired  judge,  and  the  vic- 
tim of  a  youthful  error.  Still,  there  is  the  indictment,  the  ac- 
cused has  confessed  ;  I  have  sent  in  my  report,  and  have  a 
warrant  for  his  imprisonment ;  I  cannot  help  myself.  As  to 
the  place  of  detention,  your  grandson  will  be  taken  to  the 
Conciergerie." 

"Thank  you,  monsieur,"  said  the  miserable  Bourlac.  He 
fell  senseless  on  the  snow,  and  tumbled  into  one  of  the  rain- 
water cisterns,  which  at  that  time  divided  the  trees  on  the 
boulevard. 

The  police  officer  called  for  help,  and  Nepomucene  hurried 
out  with  Madame  Vauthier.  The  old  man  was  carried  in- 
doors, and  the  woman  begged  the  police  constable,  as  he  went 
by  the  Rue  d'Enfer,  to  send  Doctor  Berton  as  quickly  as  pos- 
sible. 

"What  is  tne  matter  with  my  grandfather?"  asked  poor 
Auguste. 

"He  is  crazed,  sir.  That  is  what  comes  of  thieving !" 
said"  the  Vauthier. 

Auguste  made  a  rush  as  though  to  crack  his  skull ;  but  the 
two  men  held  him. 

"Come,  come,  young  man.  Take  it  quietly,"  said  the 
officer.  "Be  calm.  You  have  done  wrong,  but  it  is  not 
irremediable." 

"  But  pray,  monsieur,  tell  the  woman  that  my  grandfather 
has  probably  not  touched  a  morsel  of  food  for  these  twenty- 
four  hours." 

"  Oh,  poor  creatures  !  "  said  the  officer  to  himself. 


THE   SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  219 

He  stopped  the  coach,  which  had  started,  and  said  a  word 
in  his  clerk's  ear;  the  man  ran  off  to  speak  to  old  Vauthier, 
and  then  returned  at  once. 

Monsieur  Berton  was  of  opinion  that  Monsieur  Bernard — 
for  he  knew  him  by  no  other  name — was  suffering  from  an 
attack  of  high  fever ;  but  when  Madame  Vauthier  had  told 
him  of  all  the  events  that  had  led  up  to  it  in  the  way  in  which 
a  housekeeper  tells  a  story,  the  doctor  thought  it  necessary  to 
report  the  whole  business  next  day  to  Monsieur  Alain  at  the 
church  of  Saint-Jacques  du  Haut-Pas,  and  Monsieur  Alain 
sent  a  pencil  note  by  messenger  to  Monsieur  Nicolas,  Rue 
Chanoinesse. 

Godefroid,  on  reaching  home  the  night  before,  had  given 
the  notes  on  the  book  to  Monsieur  Nicolas,  who  spent  the 
greater  part  of  the  night  in  reading  the  first  volume  of  Baron 
Bourlac's  work. 

On  the  following  day  Madame  de  la  Chanterie  told  Gode- 
froid that  if  his  determination  still  held  good,  he  might  begin 
on  his  work  at  once. 

Godefroid,  initiated  by  her  into  the  financial  secrets  of  the 
Society,  worked  for  seven  or  eight  hours  a  day,  and  for  several 
months,  under  the  supervision  of  Frederic  Mongenod,  who 
came  every  Sunday  to  look  through  the  work,  and  who  praised 
him  for  the  way  in  which  it  was  done. 

"  You  are  a  valuable  acquisition  for  the  saints  among  whom 
you  live,"  said  the  banker  when  all  the  accounts  were  clearly 
set  forth  and  balanced.  "  Two  or  three  hours  a  day  will  now 
be  enough  to  keep  the  accounts  in  order,  and  during  the  rest 
of  your  time  you  can  help  them,  if  you  still  feel  the  vocation 
as  you  did  six  months  since." 

This  was  in  the  month  of  July,  1838.  During  the  time 
that  had  elapsed  since  the  affair  of  the  Boulevard  du  Mont- 
Parnasse,  Godefroid,  eager  to  prove  himself  worthy  of  his 
companions,  had  never  asked  a  single  question  as  to  Baron 


220  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY. 

Bouriac  ;  for,  as  he  had  not  heard  a  word,  nor  found  any- 
thing in  the  account-books  that  bore  on  the  matter,  he  sus- 
pected that  the  silence  that  was  preserved  with  regard  to  the 
two  men  who  had  been  so  ruthless  to  Madame  de  la  Chan- 
terie,  was  intended  as  a  test  to  which  he  was  being  put,  or 
perhaps  as  proof  that  the  noble  lady's  friends  had  avenged 
her. 

But,  two  months  later,  in  the  course  of  a  walk  one  day,  he 
went  as  far  as  the  Boulevard  du  Mont-Parnasse,  managed  to 
meet  Madame  Vauthier,  and  asked  her  for  some  news  of  the 
Bernard  family. 

"  Who  can  tell,  my  dear  Monsieur  Godefroid,  what  has 
become  of  those  people.  Two  days  after  your  expedition — 
for  it  was  you,  you  cunning  dog,  who  blabbed  to  my  landlord 
— somebody  came  who  took  that  old  swaggerer  off  my  hands. 
Then,  in  four-and-twenty  hours,  everything  was  cleared  out — 
not  a  stick  left,  nor  a  word  said — perfect  strangers  to  me,  and 
they  told  me  nothing.  I  believe  he  packed  himself  off  to 
Algiers  with  his  precious  grandson  ;  for  Nepomucene,  who 
was  very  devoted  to  that  young  thief — he  is  no  better  than  he 
should  be  himself — did  not  find  him  in  the  Conciergerie,  and 
he  alone  knows  where  they  are,  and  the  scamp  has  gone  off 
and  left  me.  You  bring  up  these  wretched  foundlings  and 
this  is  the  reward  you  get ;  they  leave  you  high  and  dry.  I 
have  not  been  able  to  find  any  one  to  take  his  place,  and,  as 
the  neighborhood  is  very  crowded  and  the  house  is  full,  I  am 
worked  to  death." 

And  Godefroid  would  never  have  known  anything  more 
of  Baron  Bouriac  but  for  the  conclusion  of  the  adventure, 
which  came  about  through  one  of  the  chance  meetings  which 
occur  in  Paris. 

In  the  month  of  September,  Godefroid  was  walking  down 
the  Champs-Elysees,  when,  as  he  passed  the  end  of  the  Rue 
Marbeuf,  he  remembered  Doctor  Halpersohn. 

"I  ought  to  call  on  him,"  thought  he,  "and  ask  if  he 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY.  221 

cured  Bourlac's  daughter.  What  a  voice,  what  a  gift  she  had  ! 
She  wanted  to  dedicate  herself  to  God  !  " 

As  he  got  to  the  Rond-Point,  Godefroid  crossed  the  road 
hurriedly  to  avoid  the  carriages  that  came  quickly  down  the 
grand  avenue,  and  he  ran  up  against  a  youth  who  had  a  young- 
looking  woman  on  his  arm. 

"  Take  care  !  "  cried  the  young  man.     "  Are  you  blind  ?  " 

"Why,  it  is  you!"  cried  Godefroid,  recognizing  Auguste 
de  Mergi. 

Auguste  was  so  well  dressed,  so  handsome,  so  smart,  so 
proud  of  the  lady  he  was  escorting,  that,  but  for  the  memories 
that  rushed  on  his  mind,  Godefroid  would  hardly  have  recog- 
nized them. 

"Why,  it  is  dear  Monsieur  Godefroid!"  exclaimed  the 
lady. 

On  hearing  the  delightful  tones  of  Vanda's  enchanting 
voice,  and  seeing  her  walking,  Godefroid  stood  riveted  to  the 
spot. 

"  Cured  !  "  he  exclaimed. 

"  Ten  days  ago  he  allowed  me  to  walk,"  she  replied. 

"  Halpersohn  ?  " 

"Yes,"  said  she.  "And  why  have  you  never  come  to  see 
us?  But,  indeed,  you  were  wise.  My  hair  was  not  cut  off 
till  about  a  week  ago.  This  that  you  see  is  but  a  wig ;  but 
the  doctor  assures  me  it  will  grow  again  !  But  we  have  so 
much  to  say  to  each  other.  Will  you  not  come  to  dine  with 
us?  Oh,  that  melodeon  !  Oh,  monsieur  !  "  and  she  put  her 
handkerchief  to  her  eyes.  "  I  will  treasure  it  all  my  life  ! 
My  son  will  preserve  it  as  a  relic.  My  father  has  sought  for 
you  all  through  Paris,  and  he  is  anxiously  in  search,  too,  of 
his  unknown  benefactors.  He  will  die  of  grief  if  you  cannot 
help  him  to  find  them.  He  suffers  from  the  deepest  and 
darkest  melancholy,  and  I  cannot  always  succeed  in  rousing 
him  from  it." 

Fascinated  alike  by  the  voice  of  this  charming  woman  re- 


222  THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTORY. 

called  from  the  grave,  and  by  that  of  irresistible  curiosity, 
Godefroid  gave  his  arm  to  the  hand  held  out  by  the  Baronne 
de  Mergi,  who  let  her  son  go  on  in  front  with  an  errand,  which 
the  lad  had  understood  from  his  mother's  nod. 

"  I  shall  not  take  you  far  ;  we  are  living  in  the  Alice  d'Antin, 
in  a  pretty  little  house  of  English  fashion  j  we  have  it  all  to 
ourselves,  each  of  us  occupies  a  floor.  Oh,  we  are  very  com- 
fortable !  And  my  father  believes  that  you  have  had  a  great 
deal  to  do  with  the  good-fortune  that  is  poured  upon  us " 

"I?" 

"Did  you  not  know  that  a  place  has  been  created  for  him 
in  consequence  of  a  report  from  the  minister  for  public  in- 
struction, a  Chair  of  Legislature,  like  one  at  the  Sorbonne? 
My  father  will  give  his  first  course  of  lectures  in  the  month 
of  November  next.  The  great  work  on  which  he  was  engaged 
will  be  published  in  a  month  or  so;  the  house  of  Cavalier  is 
bringing  it  out  on  half-profits  with  my  father,  and  has  paid 
him  thirty  thousand  francs  on  account  of  his  share ;  so  he  is 
buying  the  house  we  live  in.  The  minister  of  justice  allows 
me  a  pension  of  twelve  hundred  francs  as  the  daughter  of  a 
retired  magistrate ;  my  father  has  his  pension  of  a  thousand 
crowns,  and  he  had  five  thousand  francs  with  his  professorship. 
We  are  so  economical  that  we  shall  be  almost  rich. 

"  My  Auguste  will  begin  studying  the  law  a  few  months 
hence ;  meanwhile,  he  has  employment  in  the  public  prose- 
cutor's office,  and  gets  twelve  hundred  francs.  Oh,  Monsieur 
Godefroid,  never  mention  that  miserable  business  of  my  poor 
Auguste's.  For  my  part,  I  bless  him  every  day  for  the  deed 
which  his  grandfather  has  not  yet  forgiven.  His  mother 
blesses  him,  Halpersohn  is  devoted  to  him,  but  the  old  public 
prosecutor  is  implacable  !  " 

"What  business?"  asked  Godefroid. 

"Ah  !  that  is  just  like  your  generosity  ! "  cried  Vanda. 
"You  have  a  noble  heart.  Your  mother  must  be  proud  of 
you " 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  HISTOR  Y.  223 

"  On  my  word,  I  know  nothing  of  the  matter  you  allude 
to,"  said  Godefroid. 

"Really,  you  did  not  hear?"  And  she  frankly  told  the 
story  of  Auguste's  borrowing  from  the  doctor,  admiring  her 
son  for  the  action. 

"  But  if  I  am  to  say  nothing  about  this  before  the  baron," 
said  Godefroid,  "  tell  me  how  your  son  got  out  of  the 
scrape." 

"Well,"  said  Vanda,  "as  I  told  you,  my  son  is  in  the 
public  prosecutor's  office,  and  has  met  with  the  greatest  kind- 
ness. He  was  not  kept  more  than  eight-and-forty  hours  in  the 
Conciergerie,  where  he  was  lodged  with  the  governor.  The 
worthy  doctor,  who  did  not  get  Auguste's  beautiful,  sublime 
letter  till  the  evening,  withdrew  the  charge  ;  and  by  the  inter- 
vention of  a  former  presiding  judge  of  the  Supreme  Court — a 
man  my  father  had  never  even  seen — the  public  prosecutor 
had  the  police  agent's  report  and  the  warrant  for  arrest  both 
destroyed.  In  fact,  not  a  trace  of  the  affair  survives  but  in  my 
heart,  in  my  son's  conscience,  and  in  his  grandfather's  mind — 
who,  since  that  day,  speaks  to  my  boy  in  the  coldest  terms, 
and  treats  him  as  a  stranger. 

"Only  yesterday,  Halpersohn  was  interceding  for  him; 
but  my  father,  who  will  not  listen  to  me,  much  as  he  loves  me, 
replied  :  '  You  are  the  person  robbed,  you  can  and  ought  to 
forgive.  But  I  am  answerable  for  the  thief — and,  when  I  sat 
on  the  bench,  I  never  pronounced  a  pardon  ! '  '  You  will  kill 
your  daughter,' said  Halpersohn — I  heard  them.  My  father 
kept  silence." 

"  But  who  is  it  that  has  helped  you?" 

"  A  gentleman  who  is,  we  believe,  employed  to  distribute 
the  benefactions  of  the  Queen." 

"  What  is  he  like?  "  asked  Godefroid. 

"He  is  a  grave,  thin  man,  sad-looking — something  like  my 
father.  It  was  he  who  had  my  father  conveyed  to  the  house 
where  we  now  are,  when  he  was  in  a  high  fever.  And,  just 


224  THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

fancy,  as  soon  as  my  father  was  well,  I  was  removed  from  the 
private  hospital  and  brought  there,  where  I  found  my  old  bed- 
room just  as  though  I  had  never  left  it.  Halpersohn,  whom 
the  tall  gentleman  had  quite  bewitched — how  I  know  not — 
then  told  me  all  about  my  father's  sufferings,  and  how  he  had 
sold  the  diamonds  off  his  snuff-box  !  My  father  and  my  boy 
often  without  bread,  and  making  believe  to  be  rich  in  my 
presence !  Oh,  Monsieur  Godefroid,  those  two  men  are 
martyrs!  What  can  I  say  to  my  father?  I  can  only  repay 
him  and  my  son  by  suffering  for  them,  like  them." 

"And  had  the  tall  gentleman  something  of  a  military 
air?" 

"Oh,  you  know  him  !  "  cried  Vanda,  as  they  reached  the 
door  of  the  house. 

She  seized  Godefroid's  hand  with  the  grip  of  a  woman  in 
hysterics,  and  dragging  him  into  a  drawing-room  of  which  the 
door  stood  open,  she  exclaimed — "  Father,  Monsieur  Gode- 
froid knows  your  benefactor." 

Baron  Bourlac,  whom  Godefroid  found  dressed  in  a  style 
suitable  to  a  retired  judge  of  his  high  rank,  held  out  his  hand 
to  Godefroid,  and  said — 

"I  thought  as  much." 

Godefroid  shook  his  head  in  negation  of  any  knowledge  of 
the  details  of  this  noble  revenge ;  but  the  baron  did  not  give 
him  time  to  speak. 

"Monsieur,"  he  went  on,  "only  Providence  can  be  more 
powerful,  only  Love  can  be  more  thoughtful,  only  Mother- 
hood can  be  more  clear-sighted,  than  your  friends  who  are 
allied  with  those  great  divinities.  I  bless  the  chance  that  has 
led  to  our  meeting  again,  for  Monsieur  Joseph  has  vanished 
completely;  and  as  he  has  succeeded  in  avoiding  every  snare 
I  could  lay  to  ascertain  his  real  name  and  residence,  I  should 
have  died  in  grief.  But  here,  read  his  letter.  And  you  know 
him?" 

Godefroid  read  as  follows: 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  225 

"  Monsieur  le  Baron  Bourlac,  the  money  we  have  laid  out 
for  you  by  the  orders  of  a  charitable  lady  amounts  to  a  sum 
of  fifteen  thousand  francs.  Take  note  of  this,  that  it  may  be 
repaid  either  by  you  or  by  your  descendants  when  your  family 
is  sufficiently  prosperous  to  allow  of  it,  for  it  belongs  to  the 
poor.  When  such  repayment  is  possible,  deposit  the  money 
you  owe  with  the  Brothers  Mongenod,  bankers.  God  forgive 
you  your  sins!  " 

The  letter  was  mysteriously  signed  with  five  crosses. 

Godefroid  returned  it.  "  The  five  crosses,  sure  enough !  " 
said  he  to  himself. 

"Now,  since  you  know  all,"  said  the  old  man,  "you  who 
were  this  mysterious  lady's  messenger — tell  me  her  name." 

"  Her  name  !  "  cried  Godefroid ;  "  her  name  !  Unhappy 
man,  never  ask  it !  never  try  to  find  it  out.  Oh,  madame," 
said  he,  taking  Madame  de  Mergi's  hand  in  his  own,  which 
shook,  "  if  you  value  your  father's  sanity,  keep  him  in  his 
ignorance;  never  let  him  make  any  attempt " 

The  father,  the  daughter,  and  Auguste  stood  frozen  with 
amazement. 

"  But  tell  it !  "  said  Vanda. 

'•Well,  then,  the  woman  who  has  preserved  your  daughter 
for  you,"  said  Godefroid,  looking  at  the  old  lawyer,  "who 
has  restored  her  to  you,  young,  lovely,  fresh,  and  living — who 
has  snatched  her  from  the  grave — who  has  rescued  your  grand- 
son from  disgrace — who  has  secured  to  you  a  happy  and 

respected  old  age — who  has  saved  you  all  three "  he  paused, 

"  is  a  woman  whom  you  sent  innocent  to  the  hulks  for  twenty 
years,"  he  went  on,  addressing  Monsieur  Bourlac,  "  on  whom, 
from  your  judgment-seat,  you  poured  every  insult,  whose  saint- 
liness  you  mocked  at,  and  from  whom  you  snatched  a  lovely 
daughter  to  send  her  to  the  most  horrible  death,  for  she  was 
guillotined  !  " 

Godefroid,  seeing  Vanda  drop  senseless  on  to  a  chair, 
15 


226  THE   SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY. 

rushed  out  of  the  room,  and  from  thence  into  the  Alice 
d'Antin,  where  he  took  to  his  heels. 

"If  you  would  earn  my  forgiveness,"  said  Baron  Bourlac 
to  his  grandson,  "  follow  that  man  and  find  out  where  he 
lives." 

Auguste  was  off  like  a  dart. 

By  half-past  eight  next  morning,  Baron  Bourlac  was  knock- 
ing at  the  old  yellow  gate  of  the  Hotel  de  la  Chanterie,  Rue 
Chanoinesse.  He  asked  for  Madame  de  la  Chanterie,  and  the 
porter  pointed  to  the  stone  steps.  Happily  they  were  all 
going  to  breakfast,  and  Godefroid  recognized  the  baron  in  the 
courtyard  through  one  of  the  loopholes  that  lighted  the  stairs. 
He  had  but  just  time  to  fly  down  into  the  drawing-room  where 
they  were  all  assembled,  crying  out — "  Baron  Bourlac." 

On  hearing  this  name,  Madame  de  la  Chanterie,  supported 
by  the  Abbe  de  Veze,  disappeared  into  her  room. 

"You  shall  not  come  in,  you  imp  of  Satan  !  "  cried  Manon, 
who  recognized  the  lawyer  and  placed  herself  in  front  of  the 
drawing-room  door.  "  Do  you  want  to  kill  my  mistress?  " 

"Come,  Manon,  let  the  gentleman  pass,"  said  Monsieur 
Alain. 

Manon  dropped  on  to  a  chair  as  if  her  knees  had  both  given 
way  at  once. 

"Gentlemen,"  said  the  baron  in  a  voice  of  deep  emotion, 
as  he  recognized  Godefroid  and  Monsieur  Joseph,  and  bowed 
to  the  two  strangers,  "  beneficence  confers  a  claim  on  those 
benefited  by  it !  " 

"You  owe  nothing  to  us,"  said  the  worthy  Alain;  "you 
owe  everything  to  God." 

"You  are  saints,  and  you  have  the  serenity  of  saints," 
replied  the  old  lawyer.  "You  will  hear  me,  I  beg.  I  have 
learnt  that  the  superhuman  blessings  that  have  been  heaped 
on  me  for  eighteen  months  past  are  the  work  of  a  person  whom 
I  deeply  injured  in  the  course  of  my  duty ;  it  was  fifteen  years 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  HISTORY.  227 

before  I  was  assured  of  her  innocence ;  this,  gentlemen,  is 
the  single  remorse  I  have  known  as  due  to  the  exercise  of  my 
powers.  Listen  !  I  have  not  much  longer  to  live,  but  I  shall 
lose  that  short  term  of  life,  necessary  still  to  my  children 
whom  Madame  de  la  Chanterie  has  saved,  if  I  cannot  win  her 
forgiveness.  Gentlemen,  I  will  remain  kneeling  on  the  square 
of  Notre-Dame  till  she  has  spoken  one  word  !  I  will  wait  for 
her  there  !  I  will  kiss  the  print  of  her  feet ;  I  will  find  tears 
to  soften  her  heart — I  who  have  been  dried  up  like  stubble  by 
seeing  my  daughter's  sufferings " 

The  door  of  Madame  de  la  Chanterie's  room  was  opened, 
the  Abbe  de  Veze  came  through  like  a  shade,  and  said  to 
Monsieur  Joseph — 

"That  voice  is  killing  madame." 

"  What !  she  is  there  !  She  has  passed  there  !  "  cried 
Bourlac. 

He  fell  on  his  knees,  kissed  the  floor,  and  melted  into  tears, 
crying  in  a  heart-rending  tone — 

"  In  the  name  of  Jesus  who  died  on  the  cross,  forgive ! 
forgive  !  For  my  child  has  suffered  a  thousand  deaths  !  " 

The  old  man  collapsed  so  entirely  that  the  spectators 
believed  he  was  dead. 

At  this  moment  Madame  de  la  Chanterie  appeared  like  a 
spectre  in  the  doorway,  leaning,  half-fainting,  against  the 
side-post. 

"In  the  name  of  Louis  XVI.  and  Marie  Antoinette,  whom 
I  see  on  the  scaffold,  of  Madame  Elizabeth,  of  my  daughter, 
and  of  yours — in  the  name  of  Jesus,  I  forgive  you." 

As  he  heard  the  words,  the  old  man  looked  up  and  said — 

"Thus  are  the  angels  avenged  !  " 

Monsieur  Joseph  and  Monsieur  Nicolas  helped  him  to  his 
feet  and  led  him  out  to  the  courtyard  ;  Godefroid  went  to  call 
a  coach  ;  and,  when  they  heard  the  rattle  of  wheels,  Monsieur 
Nicolas  said,  as  he  helped  the  old  man  into  it — 

"Come,  no  more,  monsieur,  or  you  will  kill  the  mother 


228 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE    OF  .HISTORY. 


too.     The  power  of  God  is  infinite,  but  human  nature  has  its 
limits." 

That  day  Godefroid  joined  the  Order  of  the  Brethren  of 
Consolation. 

VIERZCHOVNIA,  UKRAINE,  December,  1847. 


AT  THE  SIGN  OF  THE  CAT  AND 
RACKET 

(La  Maison  du  Chat-qui-Pelote). 
Dedicated  to  Mademoiselle  Marie  de  Montheau. 

HALF-WAY  down  the  Rue  Saint-Denis,  almost  at  the  corner 
of  the  Rue  du  Petit-Lion,  there  stood  formerly  one  of  those 
delightful  houses  which  enable  historians  to  reconstruct  old 
Paris  by  analogy.  The  threatening  walls  of  this  tumbledown 
abode  seemed  to  have  been  decorated  with  hieroglyphics.  .For 
what  other  name  could  the  passer-by  give  to  the  Xs  and  Vs 
which  the  horizontal  or  diagonal  timbers  traced  on  the  front, 
outlined  by  little  parallel  cracks  in  the  plaster  ?  It  was  evident 
that  every  beam  quivered  in  its  mortises  at  the  passing  of  the 
lightest  vehicle.  This  venerable  structure  was  crowned  by  a 
triangular  roof  of  which  no  example  will,  ere  long,  be  seen  in 
Paris.  This  covering,  warped  by  the  extremes  of  the  Paris 
climate,  projected  three  feet  over  the  roadway,  as  much  to 
protect  the  threshold  from  the  rainfall  as  to  shelter  the  wall 
of  a  loft  and  its  sill-less  dormer  window.  This  upper  story 
was  built  of  planks,  overlapping  each  other  like  slates,  in 
order,  no  doubt,  not  to  overweight  the  frail  house. 

One  rainy  morning  in  the  month  of  March,  a  young  man, 
carefully  wrapped  in  his  cloak,  stood  under  the  awning  of  a 
store  opposite  this  old  house,  which  he  was  studying  with  the 
enthusiasm  of  an  antiquary.  In  point  of  fact,  this  relic  of  the 
civic  life  of  the  sixteenth  century  offered  more  than  one 
problem  to  the  consideration  of  an  observer.  Each  story  pre- 
sented some  singularity;  on  the  first  floor  four  tall,  narrow 
windows,  close  together,  were  filled  as  to  the  lower  panes  with 
boards,  so  as  to  produce  the  doubtful  light  by  which  a  clever 

(229) 


230  SZGW  OF   THE   CAT  AND  RACKET. 

clerk  can  ascribe  to  his  goods  the  color  his  customers  inquire 
for.  The  young  man  seemed  very  scornful  of  this  essential 
part  of  the  house ;  his  eyes  had  not  yet  rested  on  it.  The  win- 
dows of  the  second  floor,  where  the  Venetian  blinds  were 
drawn  up,  revealing  little  India-muslin  curtains  behind  the 
large  Bohemian  glass-panes,  did  not  interest  him  either.  His 
attention  was  attracted  to  the  third  floor,  to  the  modest  sash- 
frames  of  wood,  so  clumsily  wrought  that  they  might  have 
found  a  place  in  the  Museum  of  Arts  and  Crafts  to  illustrate 
the  early  efforts  of  French  carpentry.  These  windows  were 
glazed  with  small  squares  of  glass  so  green  that,  but  for  his 
good  eyes,  the  young  man  could  not  have  seen  the  blue- 
checked  cotton  curtains  which  screened  the  mysteries  of  the 
room  from  profane  eyes.  Now  and  then  the  watcher,  weary 
of  his  fruitless  contemplation,  or  of  the  silence  in  which  the 
house  was  buried,  like  the  whole  neighborhood,  dropped  his 
eyes  toward  the  lower  regions.  An  involuntary  smile  parted 
his  lips  each  time  he  looked  at  the  store,  where,  in  fact,  there 
were  some  laughable  details. 

A  formidable  wooden  beam,  resting  on  four  pillars,  which 
appeared  to  have  bent  under  the  weight  of  the  decrepit  house, 
had  been  incrusted  with  as  many  coats  of  different  paint  as 
there  are  of  rouge  on  an  old  duchess'  cheek.  In  the  middle 
of  this  broad  and  fantastically  carved  joist  there  was  an  old 
painting  representing  a  cat  playing  rackets.  This  picture  was 
what  moved  the  young  man  to  mirth.  But  it  must  be  said 
that  the  wittiest  of  modern  painters  could  not  invent  so  comi- 
cal a  caricature.  The  animal  held  in  one  of  its  fore-paws  a 
racket  as  big  as  itself,  and  stood  on  its  hind  legs  to  aim  at 
hitting  an  enormous  ball,  returned  by  a  man  in  a  fine  em- 
broidered coat.  Drawing,  color,  and  accessories,  all  were 
treated  in  such  a  way  as  to  suggest  that  the  artist  had  meant 
to  make  game  of  the  store-owner  and  of  the  passing  observer. 
Time,  while  impairing  this  artless  painting,  had  made  it  yet 
more  grotesque  by  introducing  some  uncertain  features  which 


SIGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND  KACKET.  231 

must  have  puzzled  the  conscientious  idler.  For  instance,  the 
cat's  tail  had  been  eaten  into  in  such  a  way  that  it  might  now 
have  been  taken  for  the  figure  of  a  spectator — so  long,  and 
thick,  and  furry  were  the  tails  of  our  forefathers'  cats.  To 
the  right  of  the  picture,  on  an  azure  field  which  ill  disguised 
the  decay  of  the  wood,  might  be  read  the  name  "  Guillaume," 
and  to  the  left,  "Successor  to  Master  Chevrel."  Sun  and 
rain  had  worn  away  most  of  the  gilding  parsimoniously  applied 
to  the  letters  of  this  superscription,  in  which  the  Us  and  Vs 
had  changed  places  in  obedience  to  the  laws  of  old-world 
orthography. 

To  quench  the  pride  of  those  who  believe  that  the  world 
is  growing  cleverer  day  by  day,  and  that  modern  humbug 
surpasses  everything,  it  may  be  observed  that  these  signs,  of 
which  the  origin  seems  so  whimsical  to  many  Paris  merchants, 
are  the  dead  pictures  of  once  living  pictures  by  which  our 
roguish  ancestors  contrived  to  tempt  customers  into  their 
houses.  Thus  the  Spinning  Sow,  the  Green  Monkey,  and 
others,  were  animals  in  cages  whose  skill  astonished  the 
passer-by,  and  whose  accomplishments  prove  the  patience  of 
the  fifteenth-century  artisan.  Such  curiosities  did  more  to 
enrich  their  fortunate  owners  than  the  signs  of  "  Providence,'' 
"Good-faith,"  "Grace  of  God,"  and  "Decapitation  of  John 
the  Baptist,"  which  may  still  be  seen  in  the  Rue  Saint-Denis. 

However,  our  stranger  was  certainly  not  standing  there  to 
admire  the  cat,  which  a  minute's  attention  sufficed  to  stamp 
on  his  memory.  The  young  man  himself  had  his  peculiarities. 
His  cloak,  folded  after  the  manner  of  an  antique  drapery, 
showed  a  smart  pair  of  shoes,  all  the  more  remarkable  in  the 
midst  of  the  Paris  mud,  because  he  wore  white  silk  stockings, 
on  which  the  splashes  betrayed  his  impatience.  He  had  just 
come,  no  doubt,  from  a  wedding  or  a  ball ;  for  at  this  early 
hour  he  had  in  his  hand  a  pair  of  white  gloves,  and  his  black 
hair,  now  out  of  curl,  and  flowing  over  his  shoulders,  showed 
that  it  had  been  dressed  a  la  Caracalla,  a  fashion  introduced 


232  SIGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND   RACKET. 

as  much  by  David's  school  of  painting  as  by  the  mania  for 
Greek  and  Roman  styles  which  characterized  the  early  years 
of  this  century. 

In  spite  of  the  noise  made  by  a  few  truck  gardeners,  who, 
being  late,  rattled  past  toward  the  great  market-place  at  a 
gallop,  the  busy  street  lay  in  a  stillness  of  which  the  magic 
charm  is  known  only  to  those  who  have  wandered  through 
deserted  Paris  at  the  hours  when  its  roar,  hushed  for  a  moment, 
rises  and  spreads  in  the  distance  like  the  great  voice  of  the  sea. 
This  strange  young  man  must  have  seemed  as  curious  to  the 
storekeeping  folk  of  the  "  Cat  and  Racket  "  as  the  "  Cat  and 
Racket  "  was  to  him.  A  dazzling  white  cravat  made  his 
anxious  face  look  even  paler  than  it  really  was.  The  fire  that 
flashed  in  his  black  eyes,  gloomy  and  sparkling  by  turns,  was 
in  harmony  with  the  singular  outline  of  his  features,  with  his 
wide,  flexible  mouth,  hardened  into  a  smile.  His  forehead, 
knit  with  violent  annoyance,  had  a  stamp  of  doom.  Is  not 
the  forehead  the  most  prophetic  feature  of  a  man  ?  When  the 
stranger's  brow  expressed  passion  the  furrows  formed  in  it 
were  terrible  in  their  strength  and  energy ;  but  when  he  re- 
covered his  calmness,  so  easily  upset,  it  beamed  with  a  lumi- 
nous grace  which  gave  great  attractiveness  to  a  countenance 
in  which  joy,  grief,  love,  anger,  or  scorn  blazed  out  so  con- 
tagiously that  the  coldest  man  could  not  fail  to  be  impressed. 

He  was  so  thoroughly  vexed  by  the  time  when  the  dormer 
window  of  the  loft  was  suddenly  flung  open,  that  he  did  not 
observe  the  apparition  of  three  laughing  faces,  pink  and  white 
and  chubby,  but  as  vulgar  as  the  face  of  Commerce  as  it  is 
seen  in  sculpture  on  certain  monuments.  These  three  faces, 
framed  by  the  window,  recalled  the  puffy  cherubs  floating 
among  the  clouds  that  surround  God  the  Father.  The  ap- 
prentices snuffed  up  the  exhalations  of  the  street  with  an 
eagerness  that  showed  how  hot  and  poisonous  the  atmosphere 
of  their  garret  must  be.  After  pointing  to  the  singular  senti- 
nel, the  most  jovial,  as  he  seemed,  of  the  apprentices  retired 


SIGN  Of    THE   CAT  AND  RACKET.  233 

and  came  back  holding  an  instrument  whose  hard  metal  pipe 
is  now  superseded  by  a  leather  tube;  and  they  all  grinned 
with  mischief  as  they  looked  down  on  the  loiterer,  and 
sprinkled  him  with  a  fine  white  shower  of  which  the  scent 
proved  that  three  chins  had  just  been  shaved.  Standing  on 
tiptoe,  in  the  farthest  corner  of  their  loft,  to  enjoy  their  vic- 
tim's rage,  the  lads  ceased  laughing  on  seeing  the  haughty 
indifference  with  which  the  young  man  shook  his  cloak,  and 
the  intense  contempt  expressed  by  his  face  as  he  glanced  up 
at  the  empty  window-frame. 

At  this  moment  a  slender  white  hand  threw  up  the  lower 
half  of  one  of  the  clumsy  windows  on  the  third  floor  by  the 
aid  of  the  sash-runners,  of  which  the  pulley  so  often  suddenly 
gives  way  and  releases  the  heavy  panes  it  ought  to  hold  up. 
The  watcher  was  then  rewarded  for  his  long  waiting.  The 
face  of  a  young  girl  appeared,  as  fresh  as  one  of  the  white  cups 
that  bloom  on  the  bosom  of  the  waters,  crowned  by  a  frill  of 
tumbled  India-muslin,  which  gave  her  head  a  look  of  ex- 
quisite innocence.  Though  wrapped  in  brown  stuff,  her  neck 
and  shoulders  gleamed  here  and  there  through  little  openings 
left  by  her  movements  in  sleep.  No  expression  of  embarrass- 
ment detracted  from  the  candor  of  her  face,  or  the  calm  look 
of  eyes  immortalized  long  since  in  the  sublime  works  of 
Raphael ;  here  were  the  same  grace,  the  same  repose  as  in 
these  Virgins,  and  now  proverbial.  There  was  a  delightful 
contrast  between  the  cheeks  of  that  face  on  which  sleep  had, 
as  it  were,  given  high  relief  to  a  superabundance  of  life,  and 
the  antiquity  of  the  heavy  window  with  its  clumsy  shape  and 
black  sill.  Like  those  day-blowing  flowers,  which  in  the  early 
morning  have  not  yet  unfurled  their  cups,  twisted  by  the  chills 
of  night,  the  girl,  as  yet  hardly  awake,  let  her  blue  eyes 
wander  beyond  the  neighboring  roofs  to  look  at  the  sky; 
then,  from  habit,  she  cast  them  down  on  the  gloomy  depths 
of  the  street,  where  they  immediately  met  those  of  her  adorer. 
Vanity,  no  doubt,  distressed  her  at  being  seen  in  undress;  she 


234  SIGN  OF   THE    CAT  AND   RACKET. 

started  back,  the  worn  pulley  gave  way,  and  the  sash  fell  with 
the  rapid  run,  which  in  our  day  has  earned  for  this  artless 
invention  of  our  forefathers  an  odious  name.*  The  vision  had 
disappeared. 

To  the  young  man  the  most  radiant  star  of  morning  seemed 
to  be  hidden  by  a  cloud. 

During  these  little  incidents  the  heavy  inside  shutters  that 
protected  the  slight  windows  of  the  store  of  the  "  Cat  and 
Racket  "  had  been  removed  as  if  by  magic.  The  old  door 
with  its  knocker  was  opened  back  against  the  wall  of  the 
entry  by  a  manservant,  apparently  coeval  with  the  sign,  who, 
with  a  shaking  hand,  hung  upon  it  a  square  of  cloth,  on  which 
were  embroidered  in  yellow  silk  the  words:  "  Guillaume, 
successor  to  Chevrel."  Many  a  passer-by  would  have  found 
it  difficult  to  guess  the  class  of  trade  carried  on  by  Monsieur 
Guillaume.  Between  the  strong  iron  bars  which  protected  his 
store-windows  on  the  outside,  certain  packages,  wrapped  in 
brown  linen,  were  hardly  visible,  though  as  numerous  as  her- 
rings swimming  in  a  shoal.  Notwithstanding  the  primitive  as- 
pect of  the  Gothic  front,  Monsieur  Guillaume,  of  all  the  mer- 
chant clothiers  in  Paris,  was  the  one  whose  stores  were  always 
the  best  provided,  whose  connections  were  the  most  extensive, 
and  whose  commercial  honesty  never  lay  under  the  slightest 
suspicion.  If  some  of  his  brethren  in  business  made  a  con- 
tract with  the  Government,  and  had  not  the  required  quantity 
of  cloth,  he  was  always  ready  to  deliver  it,  however  large  the 
number  of  pieces  tendered  for.  The  wily  dealer  knew  a 
thousand  ways  of  extracting  the  largest  profits  without  being 
obliged,  like  them,  to  court  patrons,  cringing  to  them,  or 
making  them  costly  presents.  When  his  fellow-tradesmen  could 
only  pay  in  good  bills  of  long  date,  he  would  mention  his 
notary  as  an  accommodating  man,  and  managed  to  get  a 
second  profit  out  of  the  bargain,  thanks  to  this  arrangement, 
which  had  made  it  a  proverb  among  the  traders  of  the  Rue 
*  Fenfitre  a  la  Guillotine  :  Guillotine-sash. 


SIGN  OF  THE  CAT  AND  RACKET.  235 

Saint-Denis :  "  Heaven  preserve  you  from  Monsieur  Guil- 
laume's  notary  !  "  to  signify  a  heavy  discount. 

The  old  merchant  was  to  be  seen  standing  on  the  threshold 
of  his  store,  as  if  by  a  miracle,  the  instant  the  servant  with- 
drew. Monsieur  Guillaume  looked  at  the  Rue  Saint-Denis,  at 
the  neighboring  stores,  and  at  the  weather,  like  a  man  disem- 
barking at  Havre,  and  seeing  France  once  more  after  a  long 
voyage.  Having  convinced  himself  that  nothing  had  changed 
while  he  was  asleep,  he  presently  perceived  the  stranger  on 
guard,  and  he,  on  his  part,  gazed  at  the  patriarchal  draper  as 
Humboldt  may  have  scrutinized  the  first  electric  eel  he  saw  in 
America.  Monsieur  Guillaume  wore  loose  black  velvet 
breeches,  pepper-and-salt  stockings,  and  square-toed  shoes 
with  silver  buckles.  His  coat,  with  square-cut  fronts,  square- 
cut  tails,  and  square-cut  collar,  clothed  his  slightly  bent 
figure  in  greenish  cloth,  finished  with  white  metal  buttons, 
tawny  from  wear.  His  gray  hair  was  so  accurately  combed 
and  flattened  over  his  yellow  pate  that  it  made  it  look  like  a 
furrowed  field.  His  little  green  eyes,  that  might  have  been 
pierced  with  a  gimlet,  flashed  beneath  arches  faintly  tinged 
with  red  in  the  place  of  eyebrows.  Anxieties  had  wrinkled 
his  forehead  with  as  many  horizontal  lines  as  there  were 
creases  in  his  coat.  This  colorless  face  expressed  patience, 
commercial  shrewdness,  and  the  sort  of  wily  cupidity  which 
is  needful  in  business.  At  that  time  these  old  families  were 
less  rare  than  they  are  now,  in  which  the  characteristic  habits 
and  costume  of  their  calling,  surviving  in  the  midst  of  more 
recent  civilization,  were  preserved  as  cherished  traditions,  like 
the  antediluvian  remains  found  by  Cuvier  in  the  quarries. 

The  head  of  the  Guillaume  family  was  a  notable  upholder 
of  ancient  practices ;  he  might  be  heard  to  regret  the  Provost 
of  Merchants,  and  never  did  he  mention  a  decision  of  the 
Tribunal  of  Commerce  without  calling  it  the  "  Sentence  of 
the  Consuls."  Up  and  dressed  the  first  of  the  household,  in 
obedience,  no  doubt,  to  these  old  customs,  he  stood  sternly 


236  SIGN  OF   THE   CAT  AND  RACKET. 

awaiting  the  appearance  of  his  three  assistants,  ready  to  scold 
them  in  case  they  were  late.  These  young  disciples  of  Mer- 
cury knew  nothing  more  terrible  than  the  wordless  assiduity 
with  which  the  master  scrutinized  their  faces  and  their  move- 
ments on  Monday  in  search  of  evidence  or  traces  of  their 
pranks.  But  at  this  moment  the  old  clothier  paid  no  heed  to 
his  apprentices ;  he  was  absorbed  in  trying  to  divine  the  motive 
of  the  anxious  looks  which  the  young  man  in  silk  stockings  and  a 
cloak  cast  alternately  at  his  signboard  and  into  the  depths  of 
his  store.  The  daylight  was  now  brighter,  and  enabled  the 
stranger  to  discern  the  cashier's  corner  inclosed  by  a  railing 
and  screened  by  old,  green-silk  curtains,  where  were  kept  the 
immense  ledgers,  the  silent  oracles  of  the  house.  The  too 
inquisitive  gazer  seemed  to  covet  this  little  nook,  and  to  be 
taking  the  plan  of  a  dining-room  at  one  side,  lighted  by  a  sky- 
light, whence  the  family  at  meals  could  easily  see  the  smallest 
incident  that  might  occur  at  the  store-door.  So  much  affec- 
tion for  his  dwelling  seemed  suspicious  to  a  trader  who  had 
lived  long  enough  to  remember  the  law  of  maximum  prices; 
Monsieur  Guillaume  naturally  thought  that  this  sinister  per- 
sonage had  an  eye  to  the  till  of  the  Cat  and  Racket.  After 
quietly  observing  the  mute  duel  which  was  going  on  between 
his  master  and  the  stranger,  the  eldest  of  the  apprentices, 
having  seen  that  the  young  man  was  stealthily  watching  the 
windows  of  the  third  floor,  ventured  to  place  himself  on  the 
flagstone  where  Monsieur  Guillaume  was  standing.  He  took 
two  steps  out  into  the  street,  raised  his  head,  and  fancied  that 
he  caught  sight  of  Mademoiselle  Augustine  Guillaume  in  hasty 
retreat.  The  draper,  annoyed  by  his  assistant's  perspicacity, 
shot  a  side-glance  at  him  ;  but  the  draper  and  his  amorous 
apprentice  were  suddenly  relieved  from  the  fears  which  the 
young  man's  presence  had  excited  in  their  minds.  He  hailed 
a  hackney-coach  on  its  way  to  a  neighboring  stand,  and  jumped 
into  it  with  an  air  of  affected  indifference.  This  departure 
was  a  balm  to  the  hearts  of  the  other  two  lads,  who  had  been 


SIGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND  RACKET.  237 

somewhat  uneasy  as  to  meeting  the  victim  of  their  practical 
joke. 

"Well,  gentlemen,  what  ails  you  that  you  are  standing 
therewith  your  arms  folded?"  said  Monsieur  Guillaume  to  his 
three  neophytes.  "  In  former  days,  bless  you,  when  I  was  in 
Master  Chevrel's  service,  I  should  have  overhauled  more  than 
two  pieces  of  cloth  by  this  time." 

"  Then  it  was  daylight  earlier,"  said  the  second  assistant, 
whose  duty  this  was. 

The  old  storekeeper  could  not  help  smiling.  Though  two 
of  these  young  fellows,  who  were  confided  to  his  care  by  their 
fathers,  rich  manufacturers  at  Louvres  and  at  Sedan,  had  only 
to  ask  and  to  have  a  hundred  thousand  francs  the  day  when 
they  were  old  enough  to  settle  in  life,  Guillaume  regarded  it 
as  his  duty  to  keep  them  under  the  rod  of  an  old-world  des- 
potism, unknown  nowadays  in  the  showy  modern  stores,  where 
the  apprentices  expect  to  be  rich  men  at  thirty.  He  made 
them  work  like  negroes.  These  three  assistants  were  equal  to 
a  business  which  would  harry  ten  such  clerks  as  those  whose 
sybaritical  tastes  now  swell  the  columns  of  the  budget.  Not  a 
sound  disturbed  the  peace  of  this  solemn  house,  where  the 
hinges  we  re  always  oiled,  and  where  the  meanest  article  of  fur- 
niture showed  the  respectable  cleanliness  which  reveals  strict 
order  and  economy.  The  most  waggish  of  the  three  youths 
often  amused  himself  by  writing  the  date  of  its  first  appearance 
on  the  Gruyere  cheese  which  was  left  to  their  tender  mercies 
at  breakfast,  and  which  it  was  their  pleasure  to  leave  untouched. 
This  bit  of  mischief,  and  a  few  others  of  the  same  stamp,  would 
sometimes  bring  a  smile  on  the  face  of  the  younger  of  Guil- 
laume's  two  daughters,  the  pretty  maiden  who  had  just  now 
appeared  to  the  bewitched  man  in  the  street. 

Though  each  of  the  apprentices,  even  the  eldest,  paid  a 
round  sum  for  his  board,  not  one  of  them  would  have  been 
bold  enough  to  remain  at  the  master's  table  when  dessert  was 
served.  When  Madame  Guillaume  talked  of  dressing  the 


238  SIGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND  RACKET. 

salad,  the  hapless  youths  trembled  as  they  thought  of  the  thrift 
with  which  her  prudent  hand  dispensed  the  oil.  They  could 
never  think  of  spending  a  night  away  from  the  house  without 
having  given,  long  before,  a  plausible  reason  for  such  an 
irregularity.  Every  Sunday,  each  in  his  turn,  two  of  them 
accompanied  the  Guillaume  family  to  mass  at  Saint-Leu,  and 
to  vespers.  Mesdemoiselles  Virginie  and  Augustine,  simply 
attired  in  calico  print,  each  took  the  arm  of  an  apprentice 
and  walked  in  front,  under  the  piercing  eye  of  their  mother, 
who  closed  the  little  family  procession  with  her  husband, 
accustomed  by  her  to  carry  two  large  prayer-books,  bound  in 
black  morocco.  The  second  apprentice  received  no  salary. 
As  for  the  eldest,  whose  twelve  years  of  perseverance  and  dis- 
cretion had  initiated  him  into  the  secrets  of  the  house,  he  was 
paid  eight  hundred  francs  a  year  as  the  reward  of  his  labors. 
On  certain  family  festivals  he  received  as  a  gratuity  some  little 
gift,  to  which  Madame  Guillaume's  dry  and  wrinkled  hand 
alone  gave  value — netted  purses,  which  she  took  care  to  stuff 
with  cotton-batting,  to  show  off  the  fancy  stitches,  braces  of 
the  strongest  make,  or  heavy  silk  stockings.  Sometimes,  but 
rarely,  this  prime  minister  was  admitted  to  share  the  pleasures 
of  the  family  when  they  went  into  the  country,  or  when,  after 
waiting  for  months,  they  made  up  their  mind  to  exert  the 
right  acquired  by  taking  a  box  at  the  theatre  to  command  a 
piece  which  Paris  had  already  forgotten. 

As  to  the  other  assistants,  the  barrier  of  respect  which  for- 
merly divided  a  master  draper  from  his  apprentices  was  so 
firmly  established  between  them  and  the  old  storekeeper,  that 
they  would  have  been  more  likely  to  steal  a  piece  of  cloth 
than  to  infringe  this  time-honored  etiquette.  Such  reserve 
may  now  appear  ridiculous;  but  these  old  houses  were  a 
school  of  honesty  and  sound  morals.  The  masters  adopted 
their  apprentices.  The  young  man's  linen  was  cared  for, 
mended,  and  often  replaced  by  the  mistress  of  the  house.  If 
an  apprentice  fell  ill,  he  was  the  object  of  truly  maternal  at- 


SIGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND   RACKET.  239 

tendon.  In  a  case  of  danger  the  master  lavished  his  money 
in  calling  in  the  most  celebrated  physicians,  for  he  was  not 
answerable  to  their  parents  merely  for  the  good  conduct  and 
training  of  the  lads.  If  one  of  them,  whose  character  was 
unimpeachable,  suffered  misfortune,  these  old  tradesmen  knew 
how  to  value  the  intelligence  he  had  displayed,  and  they  did 
not  hesitate  to  intrust  the  happiness  of  their  daughters  to 
men  whom  they  had  long  trusted  with  their  fortunes.  Guil- 
laume  was  one  of  these  men  of  the  old  school,  and  if  he  had 
their  ridiculous  side,  he  had  all  their  good  qualities  j  and 
Joseph  Lebas,  the  chief  assistant,  an  orphan  without  any  for- 
tune, was  in  his  mind  destined  to  be  the  husband  of  Vir- 
ginie,  his  elder  daughter.  But  Joseph  did  not  share  the 
symmetrical  ideas  of  his  master,  who  would  not  for  an  empire 
have  given  his  second  daughter  in  marriage  before  the  elder. 
The  unhappy  assistant  felt  that  his  heart  was  wholly  given  to 
Mademoiselle  Augustine,  the  younger.  In  order  to  justify 
this  passion,  which  had  grown  up  in  secret,  it  is  necessary 
to  inquire  a  little  further  into  the  springs  of  the  absolute 
government  which  ruled  the  old  cloth-merchant's  household. 
Guillaume  had  two  daughters.  The  elder,  Mademoiselle 
Virginie,  was  the  very  image  of  her  mother.  Madame  Guil- 
laume, daughter  of  the  Sieur  Chevrel,  sat  so  upright  in  the 
stool  behind  her  desk,  that  more  than  once  she  had  heard 
some  wag  bet  that  she  was  a  stuffed  figure.  Her  long,  thin 
face  betrayed  exaggerated  piety.  Devoid  of  attractions  or 
of  amiable  manners,  Madame  Guillaume  commonly  decorated 
her  head — that  of  a  woman  near  on  sixty — with  a  cap  of  a 
particular  and  unvarying  shape,  with  long  lappets,  like  that 
of  a  widow.  In  all  the  neighborhood  she  was  known  as  the 
"portress  nun."  Her  speech  was  curt,  and  her  movements 
had  the  stiff  precision  of  a  semaphore.  Her  eye,  with  a 
gleam  in  it  like  a  cat's,  seemed  to  spite  the  world  because  she 
was  so  ugly.  .  Mademoiselle  Virginie,  brought  up,  like  her 
younger  sister,  under  the  domestic  rule  of  her  mother,  had 


240  SIGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND   RACKET. 

reached  the  age  of  eight-and-twenty.  Youth  mitigated  the 
graceless  effect  which  her  likeness  to  her  mother  sometimes 
gave  to  her  features,  but  maternal  austerity  had  endowed  her 
with  two  great  qualities  which  made  up  for  everything.  She 
was  patient  and  gentle.  Mademoiselle  Augustine,  who  was  but 
just  eighteen,  was  not  like  either  her  father  or  her  mother. 
She  was  one  of  those  daughters  whose  total  absence  of  any 
physical  affinity  with  their  parents  makes  one  believe  in  the 
adage :  God  gives  children.  Augustine  was  little,  or,  to 
describe  her  more  truly,  delicately  made.  Full  of  gracious 
candor,  a  man  of  the  world  could  have  found  no  fault  in  the 
charming  girl  beyond  a  certain  meanness  of  gesture  or  vul- 
garity of  attitude,  and  sometimes  a  want  of  ease.  Her  silent 
and  placid  face  was  full  of  the  transient  melancholy  which 
comes  over  all  young  girls  who  are  too  weak  to  dare  to  resist 
their  mother's  will. 

The  two  sisters,  always  plainly  dressed,  could  not  gratify 
the  innate  vanity  of  womanhood  but  by  a  luxury  of  cleanliness 
which  became  them  wonderfully,  and  made  them  harmonize 
with  the  polished  counters  and  the  shining  shelves,  on  which 
the  old  manservant  never  left  a  speck  of  dust,  and  with  the 
old-world  simplicity  of  all  they  saw  about  them.  As  their 
style  of  living  compelled  them  to  find  the  elements  of  happi- 
ness in  persistent  work,  Augustine  and  Virginie  had  hitherto 
always  satisfied  their  mother,  who  secretly  prided  herself  on 
the  perfect  characters  of  her  two  daughters.  It  is  easy  to 
imagine  the  results  of  the  training  they  had  received. 
Brought  up  to  a  commercial  life,  accustomed  to  hear  nothing 
but  dreary  arguments  and  calculations  about  trade,  having 
studied  nothing  but  grammar,  bookkeeping,  a  little  Bible- 
history,  and  the  history  of  France  in  Le  Ragois,  and  never 
reading  any  book  but  those  their  mother  would  sanction,  their 
ideas  had  not  acquired  much  scope.  They  knew  perfectly 
how  to  keep  house ;  they  were  familiar  with  the  prices  of 
things ;  they  understood  the  difficulty  of  amassing  money ; 


SIGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND   RACKET.  241 

they  were  economical,  and  had  a  great  respect  for  the  qualities 
that  make  a  man  of  business.  Although  their  father  was  rich, 
they  were  as  skilled  in  darning  as  in  embroidery ;  their  mother 
often  talked  of  having  them  taught  to  cook,  so  that  they 
might  know  how  to  order  a  dinner  and  scold  a  cook  with  due 
knowledge.  They  knew  nothing  of  the  pleasures  of  the 
world ;  and,  seeing  how  their  parents  spent  their  exemplary 
lives,  they  very  rarely  suffered  their  eyes  to  wander  beyond 
the  walls  of  their  hereditary  home,  which  to  their  mother  was 
the  whole  universe.  The  meetings  to  which  family  anniver- 
saries gave  rise  filled  in  the  future  of  earthly  joy  to  them. 

When  the  great  drawing-room  on  the  second  floor  was  to 
be  prepared  to  receive  company — Madame  Roquin,  a  Demoi- 
selle Chevrel,  fifteen  months  younger  than  her  cousin,  and 
bedecked  with  diamonds ;  young  Rabourdin,  employed  in  the 
Finance  Office  ;  Monsieur  Cesar  Birotteau,  the  rich  perfumer, 
and  his  wife,  known  as  Madame  Cesar ;  Monsieur  Camusot, 
the  richest  silk  mercer  in  the  Rue  des  Bourdonnais,  with  his 
father-in-law,  Monsieur  Cardot,  two  or  three  old  bankers,  and 
some  immaculate  ladies — the  arrangements,  made  necessary 
by  the  way  in  which  everything  was  packed  away — the  plate, 
the  Dresden  china,  the  candlesticks,  and  the  glass — made  a 
variety  in  the  monotonous  lives  of  the  three  women,  who  came 
and  went  and  exerted  themselves  as  nuns  would  to  receive 
their  bishop.  Then,  in  the  evening,  when  all  three  were 
tired  out  with  having  wiped,  rubbed,  unpacked,  and  arranged 
all  the  gauds  of  the  festival,  as  the  girls  helped  their  mother 
to  undress,  Madame  Guillaume  would  say  to  them,  "  Children, 
we  have  done  nothing  to-day." 

When,  on  very  great  occasions,  "  the  portress  nun  "  allowed 
dancing,  restricting  the  games  of  boston,  whist,  and  back- 
gammon within  the  limits  of  her  bedroom,  such  a  concession 
was  accounted  as  the  most  unhoped  felicity,  and  made  them 
happier  than  going  to  the  great  balls,  to  two  or  three  of  which 
Guillaume  would  take  the  girls  at  the  time  of  the  Carnival. 
16 


242  SIGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND  RACKET. 

And  once  a  year  the  worthy  draper  gave  an  entertainment, 
when  he  spared  no  expense.  However  rich  and  fashionable 
the  persons  invited  might  be,  they  were  careful  not  to  be 
absent ;  for  the  most  important  houses  on  the  Exchange  had 
recourse  to  the  immense  credit,  the  fortune,  or  the  time- 
honored  experience  of  Monsieur  Guillaume.  Still,  the  excel- 
lent merchant's  two  daughters  did  not  benefit  as  much  as 
might  be  supposed  by  the  lessons  the  world  has  to  offer  to 
young  spirits.  At  these  parties,  which  were  indeed  set  down 
in  the  ledger  to  the  credit  of  the  house,  they  wore  dresses  the 
shabbiness  of  which  made  them  blush.  Their  style  of  dancing 
was  not  in  any  way  remarkable,  and  their  mother's  surveil- 
lance did  not  allow  of  their  holding  any  conversation  with 
their  partners  beyond  Yes  and  No.  Also,  the  law  of  the  old 
sign  of  the  Cat  and  Racket  commanded  that  they  should  be 
home  by  eleven  o'clock,  the  hour  when  balls  and  fetes  begin 
to  be  lively.  Thus  their  pleasures,  which  seemed  to  conform 
very  fairly  to  their  father's  position,  were  often  made  insipid 
by  circumstances  which  were  part  of  the  family  habits  and 
principles. 

As  to  their  usual  life,  one  remark  will  sufficiently  paint  it. 
Madame  Guillaume  required  her  daughters  to  be  dressed  very 
early  in  the  morning,  to  come  down  every  day  at  the  same 
hour,  and  she  ordered  their  employments  with  monastic  regu- 
larity. Augustine,  however,  had  been  gifted  by  chance  with 
a  spirit  lofty  enough  to  feel  the  emptiness  of  such  a  life.  Her 
blue  eyes  would  sometimes  be  raised  as  if  to  pierce  the  depths 
of  that  gloomy  staircase  and  those  damp  warerooms.  After 
sounding  the  profound  cloistral  silence,  she  seemed  to  be 
listening  to  remote,  inarticulate  revelations  of  the  life  of  pas- 
sion, which  accounts  feelings  as  of  higher  value  than  things. 
And  at  such  moments  her  cheek  would  flush,  her  idle  hands 
would  lay  the  muslin  sewing  on  the  polished  oak  counter,  and 
presently  her  mother  would  say  in  a  voice,  of  which  even  the 
softest  tones  were  sour:  "Augustine,  my  treasure,  what  are 


SIGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND   RACKET.  243 

you  thinking  about?"  It  is  possible  that  two  romances  dis- 
covered by  Augustine  in  the  cupboard  of  a  cook  Madame 
Guillaume  had  lately  discharged — "  Hippolyte  Comte  de 
Douglas  "  and  "  Le  Comte  de  Comminges  " — may  have  con- 
tributed to  develop  the  ideas  of  the  young  girl,  who  had  de- 
voured them  in  secret,  during  the  long  nights  of  the  past 
winter. 

And  so  Augustine's  expression  of  vague  longing,  her  gentle 
voice,  her  jasmine  skin,  and  her  blue  eyes  had  lighted  in  poor 
Lebas'  soul  a  flame  as  ardent  as  it  was  reverent.  From  an 
easily  understood  caprice,  Augustine  felt  no  affection  for  the 
orphan  ;  perhaps  because  she  did  not  know  that  he  loved  her. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  senior  apprentice,  with  his  long  legs, 
his  chestnut  hair,  his  big  hands  and  powerful  frame,  had  found 
a  secret  admirer  in  Mademoiselle  Virginie,  who,  in  spite  of 
her  dower  of  fifty  thousand  crowns,  had  as  yet  no  suitor. 
Nothing  could  be  more  natural  than  these  two  passions  at 
cross-purposes,  born  in  the  silence  of  the  dingy  store,  as  violets 
bloom  in  the  depths  of  a  wood.  The  mute  and  constant  looks 
which  made  the  young  people's  eyes  meet  by  sheer  need  of 
change  in  the  midst  of  persistent  work  and  cloistered  peace, 
was  sure,  sooner  or  later,  to  give  rise  to  feelings  of  love.  The 
habit  of  seeing  always  the  same  face  leads  insensibly  to  our 
reading  there  the  qualities  of  the  soul,  and  at  last  effaces  all 
its  defects. 

"At  the  pace  at  which  that  man  goes,  our  girls  will  soon 
have  to  go  on  their  knees  to  a  suitor  !  "  said  Monsieur  Guil- 
laume to  himself,  as  he  read  the  first  decree  by  which  Napo- 
leon drew  in  advance  on  the  conscript  classes. 

From  that  day  the  old  merchant,  grieved  at  seeing  his 
eldest  daughter  fade,  remembered  how  he  had  married  Made- 
moiselle Chevrel  under  much  the  same  circumstances  as  those 
of  Joseph  Lebas  and  Virginie.  A  good  bit  of  business,  to 
marry  off  his  daughter,  and  discharge  a  sacred  debt  by  repay- 
ing to  an  orphan  the  benefit  he  had  formerly  received  from  his 


244  SIGN  OF   THE   CAT  AND  RACKET. 

predecessor  under  similar  conditions !  Joseph  Lebas,  who 
was  now  three-and-thirty,  was  aware  of  the  obstacle  which  a 
difference  of  fifteen  years  placed  between  Augustine  and  him- 
self. Being  also  too  clear-sighted  not  to  understand  Monsieur 
Guillaume's  purpose,  he  knew  his  inexorable  principles  well 
enough  to  feel  sure  that  the  second  would  never  marry  before 
the  elder.  So  the  hapless  assistant,  whose  heart  was  as  warm 
as  his  legs  were  long  and  his  chest  deep,  suffered  in  silence. 

This  was  the  state  of  affairs  in  the  tiny  republic  which,  in 
the  heart  of  the  Rue  Saint-Denis,  was  not  unlike  a  dependency 
of  La  Trappe.*  But  to  give  a  full  account  of  events  as  well  as 
of  feelings,  it  is  needful  to  go  back  to  some  months  before  the 
scene  with  which  this  story  opens.  At  dusk  one  evening,  a 
young  man,  passing  the  darkened  store  of  the  Cat  and  Racket, 
had  paused  for  a  moment  to  gaze  at  a  picture  which  might 
have  arrested  every  painter  in  the  world.  The  store  was  not 
yet  lighted,  and  was  as  a  dark  cave,  beyond  which  the  dining- 
room  was  visible.  A  hanging-lamp  shed  the  yellow  light 
which  lends  such  charm  to  pictures  of  the  Dutch  school.  The 
white  linen,  the  silver,  the  cut-glass,  were  brilliant  accessories, 
and  made  more  picturesque  by  strong  contrasts  of  light  and 
shade.  The  figures  of  the  head  of  the  family  and  his  wife,  the 
faces  of  the  apprentices,  and  the  pure  form  of  Augustine,  near 
whom  a  fat,  chubby-cheeked  maid  was  standing,  composed  so 
strange  a  group ;  the  heads  were  so  singular,  and  every  face 
had  so  candid  an  expression ;  it  was  so  easy  to  read  the 
peace,  the  silence,  the  modest  way  of  life  in  this  family,  that, 
to  an  artist  accustomed  to  render  nature,  there  was  something 
hopeless  in  any  attempt  to  depict  this  scene,  come  upon  by 
chance.  The  stranger  was  a  young  painter,  who,  seven  years 
before,  had  gained  the  first  prize  for  painting.  He  had  now 
just  come  back  from  Rome.  His  soul,  full-fed  with  poetry; 
his  eyes,  satiated  with  Raphael  and  Michael  Angelo,  thirsted 
for  real  nature  after  long  dwelling  in  the  pompous  land  where 
*  A  Cisterian  abbey  of  severe  asceticism. 


SIGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND  RACKET.  245 

art  has  everywhere  left  something  grandiose.  Right  or  wrong, 
this  was  his  personal  feeling.  His  heart,  which  had  long  been 
a  prey  to  the  fire  of  Italian  passion,  craved  one  of  those 
modest  and  meditative  maidens  whom  in  Rome  he  had  unfor- 
tunately seen  only  in  paintings.  From  the  enthusiasm  pro- 
duced in  his  excited  fancy  by  the  living  picture  before  him, 
he  naturally  passed  to  a  profound  admiration  for  the  principal 
figure ;  Augustine  seemed  to  be  pensive,  and  did  not  eat ;  by 
the  arrangement  of  the  lamp  the  light  fell  full  on  her  face,  and 
her  bust  seemed  to  move  in  a  circle  of  fire,  which  threw  up  the 
shape  of  her  head  and  illuminated  it  with  almost  supernatural 
effect.  The  artist  involuntarily  compared  her  to  an  exiled 
angel,  dreaming  of  heaven.  An  almost  unknown  emotion, 
a  limpid,  seething  love  flooded  his  heart.  After  remaining  a 
minute,  overwhelmed  by  the  weight  of  his  ideas,  he  tore  him- 
self from  his  bliss,  went  home,  ate  nothing,  and  could  not 
sleep. 

The  next  day  he  went  to  his  studio,  and  did  not  come  out 
of  it  till  he  had  placed  on  canvas  the  magic  of  the  scene  of 
which  the  memory  had,  in  a  sense,  made  him  a  devotee ;  his 
happiness  was  incomplete  till  he  should  possess  a  faithful  por- 
trait of  his  idol.  He  went  many  times  past  the  house  of  the 
Cat  and  Racket ;  he  even  ventured  in  once  or  twice,  under  a 
disguise,  to  get  a  closer  view  of  the  bewitching  creature  that 
Madame  Guillaume  covered  with  her  wing.  For  eight  whole 
months,  devoted  to  his  love  and  to  his  brush,  he  was  lost  to 
the  sight  of  his  most  intimate  friends,  forgetting  the  world, 
the  theatre,  poetry,  music,  and  all  his  dearest  habits.  One 
morning  Girodet  broke  through  all  the  barriers  with  which 
artists  are  familiar,  and  which  they  know  how  to  evade,  went 
into  his  room,  and  woke  him  by  asking:  "What  are  you 
going  to  send  to  the  Salon  ?  "  The  artist  grasped  his  friend's 
hand,  dragged  him  off  to  the  studio,  uncovered  a  small  easel 
picture  and  a  portrait.  After  a  long  and  eager  study  of  the 
two  masterpieces,  Girodet  threw  himself  on  his  comrade's 


246  SIGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND   RACKET. 

neck  and  hugged  him,  without  speaking  a  word.  His  feelings 
could  only  be  expressed  as  he  felt  them — soul  to  soul. 

"You  are  in  love?"  said  Girodet. 

They  both  knew  that  the  finest  portraits  by  Titian,  Raphael, 
and  Leonardo  da  Vinci  were  the  outcome  of  the  enthusiastic 
sentiments  by  which,  indeed,  under  various  conditions,  every 
masterpiece  is  engendered.  The  artist  only  bent  his  head  in 
reply. 

"  How  happy  are  you  to  be  able  to  be  in  love,  here,  after 
coming  back  from  Italy !  But  I  do  not  advise  you  to  send 
such  works  as  these  to  the  Salon,"  the  great  painter  went  on. 
"  You  see,  these  two  works  will  not  be  appreciated.  Such 
true  coloring,  such  prodigious  work,  cannot  yet  be  under- 
stood; the  public  is  not  accustomed  to  such  depths.  The 
pictures  we  paint,  my  dear  fellow,  are  mere  screens.  We 
should  do  better  to  turn  rhymes,  and  translate  the  antique 
poets !  There  is  more  glory  to  be  looked  for  there  than  from 
our  luckless  canvasses  !  " 

Notwithstanding  this  charitable  advice,  the  two  pictures 
were  exhibited.  The  "  Interior  "  made  a  revolution  in  paint- 
ing. It  gave  birth  to  the  pictures  of  genre  which  pour  into 
all  our  exhibitions  in  such  prodigious  quantity  that  they  might 
be  supposed  to  be  produced  by  machinery.  As  to  the  portrait, 
few  artists  have  forgotten  that  lifelike  work ;  and  the  public, 
which  as  a  body  is  sometimes  discerning,  awarded  it  the  crown 
which  Girodet  himself  had  hung  over  it.  The  two  pictures 
were  surrounded  by  a  vast  throng.  They  fought  for  places, 
as  women  say.  Speculators  and  moneyed  men  would  have 
covered  the  canvas  with  double  Napoleons,  but  the  artist 
obstinately  refused  to  sell  or  to  make  replicas.  An  enormous 
sum  was  offered  him  for  the  right  of  engraving  them,  but  the 
printsellers  were  not  more  favored  than  the  amateurs. 

Though  these  incidents  occupied  the  world,  they  were  not 
of  a  nature  to  penetrate  the  recesses  of  the  monastic  solitude 
in  the  Rue  Saint-Denis.  However,  when  paying  a  visit  to 


SIGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND  RACKET.  24? 

Madame  Guillaume,  the  notary's  wife  spoke  of  the  exhibition 
before  Augustine,  of  whom  she  was  very  fond,  and  explained  its 
purpose.  Madame  Roquin's  gossip  naturally  inspired  Augus- 
tine with  a  wish  to  see  the  pictures,  and  with  courage  enough 
to  ask  her  cousin  secretly  to  take  her  to  the  Louvre.  Her 
cousin  succeeded  in  the  negotiations  she  opened  with  Madame 
Guillaume  for  permission  to  release  the  young  girl  for  two  hours 
from  her  dull  labors.  Augustine  was  thus  able  to  make  her  way 
through  the  crowd  to  see  the  crowned  work.  A  fit  of  trem- 
bling shook  her  like  an  aspen  leaf  as  she  recognized  herself. 
She  was  terrified,  and  looked  about  her  to  find  Madame 
Roquin,  from  whom  she  had  been  separated  by  a  tide  of 
people.  At  that  moment  her  frightened  eyes  fell  on  the  im- 
passioned face  of  the  young  painter.  She  at  once  recalled 
the  figure  of  a  loiterer  whom,  being  curious,  she  had  fre- 
quently observed,  believing  him  to  be  a  new  neighbor. 

"You  see  how  love  has  inspired  me,"  said  the  artist  in  the 
timid  creature's  ear,  and  she  stood  in  dismay  at  the  words. 

She  found  supernatural  courage  to  enable  her  to  push 
through  the  crowd  and  join  her  cousin,  who  was  still  strug- 
gling with  the  mass  of  people  that  hindered  her  from  getting 
to  the  picture. 

"You  will  be  stifled  !  "  cried  Augustine.     "  Let  us  go." 

But  there  are  moments,  at  the  Salon,  when  two  women  are 
not  always  free  to  direct  their  steps  through  the  galleries. 
By  the  irregular  course  to  which  they  were  compelled  by  the 
press,  Mademoiselle  Guillaume  and  her  cousin  were  pushed 
to  within  a  few  steps  of  the  second  picture.  Chance  thus 
brought  them,  both  together,  to  where  they  could  easily  see 
the  canvas  made  famous  by  fashion,  for  once  in  agreement 
with  talent.  Madame  Roquin's  exclamation  of  surprise  was 
lost  in  the  hubbub  and  buzz  of  the  crowd ;  Augustine  invol- 
untarily shed  tears  at  the  sight  of  this  wonderful  study. 
Then,  by  an  almost  unaccountable  impulse,  she  laid  her  finger 
on  her  lips,  as  she  perceived  quite  near  her  the  ecstatic  face 


248  SIGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND   RACKET. 

of  the  young  painter.  The  stranger  replied  by  a  nod,  and 
pointed  to  Madame  Roquin,  as  a  spoil-sport,  to  show  Augus- 
tine that  he  had  understood.  This  pantomime  struck  the 
young  girl  like  hot  coals  on  her  flesh  ;  she  felt  quite  guilty  as 
she  perceived  that  there  was  a  compact  between  herself  and 
the  artist.  The  suffocating  heat,  the  dazzling  sight  of  beauti- 
ful dresses,  the  bewilderment  produced  in  Augustine's  brain 
by  the  truth  of  coloring,  the  multitude  of  living  or  painted 
figures,  the  profusion  of  gilt  frames,  gave  her  a  sense  of  in- 
toxication which  doubled  her  alarms.  She  would  perhaps 
have  fainted  if  an  unknown  rapture  had  not  surged  up  in  her 
heart  to  vivify  her  whole  being,  in  spite  of  this  chaos  of  sen- 
sations. She  nevertheless  believed  herself  to  be  under  the 
power  of  the  devil,  of  whose  awful  snares  she  had  been 
warned  by  the  thundering  words  of  preachers.  This  moment 
was  to  her  like  a  moment  of  madness.  She  found  herself  ac- 
companied to  her  cousin's  carriage  by  the  young  man,  radiant 
with  joy  and  love.  Augustine,  a  prey  to  an  agitation  new  to 
her  experience,  an  intoxication  which  seemed  to  abandon  her 
to  nature,  listened  to  the  eloquent  voice  of  her  heart,  and 
looked  again  and  again  at  the  young  painter,  betraying  the 
emotion  that  came  over  her.  Never  had  the  bright  rose  of 
her  cheeks  shown  in  stronger  contrast  with  the  whiteness  of 
her  skin.  The  artist  saw  her  beauty  in  all  its  bloom,  her 
maiden  modesty  in  all  its  glory.  She  herself  felt  a  sort  of 
rapture  mingled  with  terror  at  thinking  that  her  presence  had 
brought  happiness  to  him  whose  name  was  on  every  lip,  and 
whose  talent  lent  immortality  to  transient  scenes.  She  was 
loved  !  It  was  impossible  to  doubt  it.  When  she  no  longer 
saw  the  artist,  these  simple  words  still  echoed  in  her  ear: 
"You  see  how  love  has  inspired  me  !  "  And  the  throbs  of 
her  heart,  as  they  grew  deeper,  seemed  a  pain,  her  heated  blood 
revealed  so  many  unknown  forces  in  her  being.  She  affected 
a  severe  headache  to  avoid  replying  to  her  cousin's  questions 
concerning  the  pictures ;  but  on  their  return  Madame  Roquin 


SIGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND  RACKET.  249 

could  not  forbear  from  speaking  to  Madame  Guillaume  of  the 
fame  that  had  fallen  on  the  house  of  the  Cat  and  Racket,  and 
Augustine  quaked  in  every  limb  as  she  heard  her  mother  say 
that  she  should  go  to  the  Salon  to  see  her  house  there.  The 
young  girl  again  declared  herself  suffering,  and  obtained  leave 
to  go  to  bed. 

"  That  is  what  comes  of  sight-seeing,"  exclaimed  Monsieur 
Guillaume — "  a  headache.  And  is  it  so  very  amusing  to  see 
in  a  picture  what  you  can  see  any  day  in  your  own  street  ? 
Don't  talk  to  me  of  your  artists  !  Like  writers,  they  are  a 
starveling  crew.  Why  the  devil  need  they  choose  my  house 
to  flout  it  in  their  pictures  ?  " 

"  It  may  help  to  sell  a  few  ells  more  of  cloth,"  said  Joseph 
Lebas. 

This  remark  did  not  protect  art  and  thought  from  being 
condemned  once  again  before  the  judgment-seat  of  trade.  As 
may  be  supposed,  these  speeches  did  not  infuse  much  hope 
into  Augustine,  who,  during  the  night,  gave  herself  up  to  the 
first  meditations  of  love.  The  events  of  the  day  were  like  a 
dream,  which  it  was  joy  to  recall  to  her  mind.  She  was 
initiated  into  the  fears,  the  hopes,  the  remorse,  all  the  ebb 
and  flow  of  feeling  which  could  not  fail  to  toss  a  heart  so 
simple  and  so  timid  as  hers.  What  a  void  she  perceived  in 
this  gloomy  house  !  What  a  treasure  she  found  in  her  soul ! 
To  be  the  wife  of  a  genius,  to  share  his  glory  !  What  ravages 
must  such  a  vision  make  in  the  heart  of  a  girl  brought  up 
among  such  a  family  !  What  hopes  must  it  raise  in  a  young 
creature  who,  in  the  midst  of  sordid  elements,  had  pined  for  a 
life  of  elegance !  A  sunbeam  had  fallen  into  the  prison. 
Augustine  was  suddenly  in  love.  So  many  of  her  feelings 
were  soothed  that  she  succumbed  without  reflection.  At 
eighteen  does  not  love  hold  a  prism  between  the  world  and 
the  eyes  of  a  young  girl  ?  She  was  incapable  of  suspecting 
the  hard  facts  which  result  from  the  union  of  a  loving  woman 
with  a  man  of  imagination,  and  she  believed  herself  called  to 


250  SIGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND  RACKET. 

make  him  happy,  not  seeing  any  disparity  between  herself  and 
him.  To  her  the  future  would  be  as  the  present.  When, 
next  day,  her  father  and  mother  returned  from  the  Salon, 
their  dejected  faces  proclaimed  some  disappointment.  In  the 
first  place,  the  painter  had  removed  the  two  pictures ;  and 
then  Madame  Guillaume  had  lost  her  cashmere  shawl.  But 
the  news  that  the  pictures  had  disappeared  from  the  walls 
since  her  visit  revealed  to  Augustine  a  delicacy  of  sentiment 
which  a  woman  can  always  appreciate,  even  by  instinct. 

On  the  morning  when,  on  his  way  home  from  a  ball, 
Theodore  de  Sommervieux — for  this  was  the  name  which  fame 
had  stamped  on  Augustine's  heart — had  been  squirted  on  by  the 
apprentices  while  awaiting  the  appearance  of  his  artless  little 
friend,  who  certainly  did  not  know  that  he  was  there,  the 
lovers  had  seen  each  other  for  the  fourth  time  only  since  their 
meeting  at  the  Salon.  The  difficulties  which  the  rule  of  the 
house  placed  in  the  way  of  the  painter's  ardent  nature  gave 
added  violence  to  his  passion  for  Augustine. 

How  could  he  get  near  to  a  young  girl  seated  in  a  counting- 
house  between  two  such  women  as  Mademoiselle  Virgin ie  and 
Madame  Guillaume?  How  could  he  correspond  with  her 
when  her  mother  never  left  her  side?  Ingenious,  as  lovers 
are,  to  imagine  woes,  Theodore  saw  a  rival  in  one  of  the  as- 
sistants, to  whose  interests  he  supposed  the  others  to  be  devoted. 
If  he  should  evade  these  sons  of  Argus,  he  would  yet  be 
wrecked  under  the  stern  eyes  of  the  old  draper  or  of  Madame 
Guillaume.  The  very  vehemence  of  his  passion  hindered  the 
young  painter  from  hitting  on  the  ingenious  expedients 
which,  in  prisoners  and  in  lovers,  seem  to  be  the  last  effort  of 
intelligence  spurred  by  a  wild  craving  for  liberty  or  by  the 
fire  of  love.  Theodore  wandered  about  the  neighborhood 
with  the  restlessness  of  a  madman,  as  though  movement 
might  inspire  him  with  some  device.  After  racking  his 
imagination,  it  occurred  to  him  to  bribe  the  blowsy  waiting- 
maid  with  gold.  Thus  a  few  notes  were  exchanged  at  long 


SIGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND  RACKET.  251 

intervals  during  the  fortnight  following  the  ill-starred  morning 
when  Monsieur  Guillaume  and  Theodore  had  so  scrutinized 
one  another.  At  the  present  moment  the  young  couple  had 
agreed  to  see  each  other  at  a  certain  hour  of  the  day,  and  on 
Sunday,  at  Saint-Leu,  during  mass  and  vespers.  Augustine 
had  sent  her  dear  Theodore  a  list  of  the  relations  and  friends 
of  the  family,  to  whom  the  young  painter  tried  to  get  access, 
in  the  hope  of  interesting,  if  it  were  possible,  in  his  love 
affairs,  one  of  these  souls  absorbed  in  money  and  trade, 
to  whom  a  genuine  passion  must  appear  a  quite  monstrous 
speculation,  a  thing  unheard  of.  Nothing,  meanwhile,  was 
altered  at  the  sign  of  the  Cat  and  Racket.  If  Augustine  was 
absent-minded,  if,  against  all  obedience  to  the  domestic  code, 
she  stole  up  to  her  room  to  make  signals  by  means  of  a  jar  of 
flowers,  if  she  sighed,  if  she  were  lost  in  thought,  no  one 
observed  it,  not  even  her  mother.  This  will  cause  some  sur- 
prise to  those  who  have  entered  into  the  spirit  of  the  house- 
hold, where  an  idea  tainted  with  poetry  would  be  in  startling 
contrast  to  persons  and  things,  where  no  one  could  venture 
on  a  gesture  or  a  look  which  would  not  be  seen  and  analyzed. 
Nothing,  however,  cculd  be  more  natural ;  the  quiet  barque 
that  navigated  the  stormy  waters  of  the  Paris  Exchange,  under 
the  flag  of  the  Cat  and  Racket,  wa£  just  now  in  the  toils  of 
one  of  these  tempests  which,  returning  periodically,  might  be 
termed  equinoctial.  For  the  last  fortnight  the  five  men  form- 
ing the  crew,  with  Madame  Guillaume  and  Mademoiselle 
Virginie,  had  been  devoting  themselves  to  the  hard  labor, 
known  as  stock-taking. 

Every  bale  was  turned  over,  and  the  length  verified  to  ascer- 
tain the  exact  value  of  the  remnant.  The  ticket  attached  to 
each  parcel  was  carefully  examined  to  see  at  what  time  the 
piece  had  been  bought.  The  retail  price  was  fixed.  Monsieur 
Guillaume,  always  on  his  feet,  his  pen  behind  his  ear,  was  like 
a  captain  commanding  the  working  of  the  ship.  His  sharp 
tones,  spoken  through  a  trap-door,  to  inquire  into  the  depths 


252  SIGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND  RACKET. 

of  the  hold  in  the  cellar-store,  gave  utterance  to  the  barbarous 
formulas  of  trade-jargon,  which  find  expression  only  in  a  pri- 
vate cypher. 

"  How  much  H.  N.  Z.  ?  "  "All  sold."  "  What  is  left  of 
Q.  X.?"  "Two  ells."  "At  what  price?"  "Fifty-five 
three."  "  Set  down  A.  at  three,  with  all  of  J.  J.,  all  of  M.  P., 
and  what  is  left  of  V.  D.  O."  A  hundred  other  injunctions 
equally  intelligible  were  spouted  over  the  counters  like  verses 
of  modern  poetry,  quoted  by  romantic  spirits,  to  excite  each 
other's  enthusiasm  for  one  of  their  poets.  In  the  evening 
Guillaume,  shut  up  with  his  assistant  and  his  wife,  balanced 
his  accounts,  carried  on  the  balance,  wrote  to  debtors  in 
arrears,  and  made  out  bills.  All  three  were  busy  over  this 
'enormous  labor,  of  which  the  result  could  be  stated  on  a 
sheet  of  foolscap,  proving  to  the  head  of  the  house  that  there 
was  so  much  to  the  good  in  hard  cash,  so  much  in  goods,  so 
much  in  bills  and  notes ;  that  he  did  not  owe  a  sou ;  that  a 
hundred  or  two  hundred  thousand  francs  were  owing  to  him ; 
that  the  capital  had  been  increased  ;  that  the  farm-lands,  the 
houses,  or  the  investments  were  extended,  or  repaired,  or 
doubled.  Whence  it  became  necessary  to  begin  again  with 
increased  ardor,  to  accumulate  more  crown-pieces,  without  its 
ever  entering  the  brain  of  these  laborious  ants  to  ask — "  To 
what  end?" 

Favored  by  this  annual  tormoil,  the  happy  Augustine  escaped 
the  investigations  of  her  Argus-eyed  relations.  At  last,  one 
Saturday  evening,  the  stock-taking  was  finished.  The  figures 
of  the  sum-total  showed  a  row  of  O's  long  enough  to  allow 
Guillaume  for  once  to  relax  the  stern  rule  as  to  dessert  which 
reigned  throughout  the  year.  The  shrewd  old  draper  rubbed 
his  hands,  and  allowed  his  assistants  to  remain  at  table.  The 
members  of  the  crew  had  hardly  swallowed  their  thimbleful 
of  some  home-made  liqueur,  when  the  rumble  of  a  carriage 
was  heard.  The  family  party  were  going  to  see  "  Gen- 
drillon"  at  the  Vari6tes,  while  the  two  younger  apprentices 


SIGN  OF   THE   CAT  AND   RACKET.  253 

each  received  a  crown  of  six  francs,  with  permission  to  go 
wherever  they  chose,  provided  they  were  in  by  midnight. 

Notwithstanding  this  debauch,  the  old  cloth-merchant  was 
shaving  himself  at  six  next  morning,  put  on  his  maroon- 
colored  coat,  of  which  the  glowing  lights  afforded  him  peren- 
nial enjoyment,  fastened  a  pair  of  gold  buckles  on  the  knee- 
straps  of  his  ample  satin  breeches ;  and  then,  at  about  seven 
o'clock,  while  all  were  still  sleeping  in  the  house,  he  made  his 
way  to  the  little  office  adjoining  the  store  on  the  first  floor. 
Daylight  came  in  through  a  window,  fortified  by  iron  bars, 
and  looking  out  on  a  small  yard  surrounded  by  such  black 
walls  that  it  was  very  like  a  well.  The  old  merchant  opened 
the  iron-lined  shutters,  which  were  so  familiar  to  him,  and 
threw  up  the  lower  half  of  the  sash  window.  The  icy  air  of 
the  courtyard  came  in  to  cool  the  hot  atmosphere  of  the  little 
room,  full  of  the  odor  peculiar  to  offices. 

The  merchant  remained  standing,  his  hand  resting  on  the 
greasy  arm  of  a  large  cane-seated  chair  lined  with  morocco, 
of  which  the  original  hue  had  disappeared ;  he  seemed  to 
hesitate  as  to  seating  himself.  He  looked  with  affection  at 
the  double  desk,  where  his  wife's  seat,  opposite  his  own,  was 
fitted  into  a  little  niche  in  the  wall.  He  contemplated  the 
numbered  boxes,  the  files,  the  implements,  the  cash-box — 
objects  all  of  immemorial  origin,  and  fancied  himself  in  the 
room  with  the  shade  of  Master  Chevrel.  He  even  pulled  out 
the  high  stool  on  which  he  had  once  sat  in  the  presence  of  his 
departed  master.  This  stool,  covered  with  black  leather,  the 
horse-hair  showing  at  every  corner — as  it  had  long  done,  with- 
out, however,  coming  out — he  placed  with  a  shaking  hand  on 
the  very  spot  where  his  predecessor  had  put  it,  and  then,  with 
an  emotion  difficult  to  describe,  he  pulled  a  bell,  which  rang 
at  the  head  of  Joseph  Lebas*  bed.  When  this  decisive  blow 
had  been  struck,  the  old  man,  for  whom,  no  doubt,  these 
reminiscences  were  too  much,  took  up  three  or  four  bills  of 
exchange,  and  looked  at  them  without  seeing  them. 


254  SIGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND  RACKET. 

Suddenly  Joseph  Lebas  stood  before  him. 

"Sit  down  there,"  said  Guillaume,  pointing  to  the  stool. 

As  the  old  master  draper  had  never  yet  bade  his  assistant 
be  seated  in  his  presence,  Joseph  Lebas  was  startled. 

"  What  do  you  think  of  these  notes?  "  asked  Guillaume. 

"They  will  never  be  paid." 

"Why?" 

"  Well,  I  heard  that  the  day  before  yesterday  Etienne  & 
Co.  had  made  their  payments  in  gold." 

"  Oh,  oh  !  "  said  the  draper.  "  Well,  one  must  be  very  ill 
to  show  one's  bile.  Let  us  speak  of  something  else.  Joseph, 
the  stock-taking  is  done." 

"  Yes,  monsieur,  and  the  dividend  is  one  of  the  best  you 
have  ever  made." 

"  Do  not  use  new-fangled  words.  Say  the  profits,  Joseph. 
Do  you  know,  my  boy,  that  this  result  is  partly  owing  to  you  ? 
And  I  do  not  intend  to  pay  you  a  salary  any  longer.  Madame 
Guillaume  has  suggested  to  me  to  take  you  into  partnership. 
'Guillaume  &  Lebas;'  will  not  that  make  a  good  business 
name?  We  might  add  'and  Co.'  to  round  off  the  firm's 
signature." 

Tears  rose  to  the  eyes  of  Joseph  Lebas,  who  tried  to  hide 
them. 

"  Oh,  Monsieur  Guillaume,  how  have  I  deserved  such  kind- 
ness ?  I  only  do  my  duty.  It  was  so  much  already  that  you 
should  take  an  interest  in  a  poor  orph " 

He  was  brushing  the  cuff  of  his  left  sleeve  with  his  right 
hand,  and  dared  not  look  at  the  old  man,  who  smiled  as  he 
thought  that  this  modest  young  fellow  no  doubt  needed,  as 
he  had  needed  once  on  a  time,  some  encouragement  to  com- 
plete his  explanation. 

"To  be  sure,"  said  Virginie's  father,  "you  do  not  alto- 
gether deserve  this  favor,  Joseph.  You  have  not  so  much 
confidence  in  me  as  I  have  in  you."  (The  young  man  looked 
up  quickly.)  "  You  know  all  the  secrets  of  the  cash-box.  For 


OF  THE  CAT  AND  RACKET.  255 

the  last  two  years  I  have  told  you  of  almost  all  my  concerns. 
I  have  sent  you  to  travel  in  our  goods.  In  short,  I  have 
nothing  on  my  conscience  as  regards  you.  But  you — you 
have  a  soft  place,  and  you  have  never  breathed  a  word  of  it." 
Joseph  Lebas  blushed.  "  Ah,  ha!"  cried  Guillaume,  "so 
you  thought  you  could  deceive  an  old  fox  like  me  ?  When 
you  knew  that  I  had  scented  the  Lecocq  bankruptcy?" 

"What,  monsieur?"  replied  Joseph  Lebas,  looking  at  his 
master  as  keenly  as  his  master  looked  at  him,  "  you  knew  that 
I  was  in  love  ? ' ' 

"  I  know  everything,  you  rascal,"  said  the  worthy  and  cun- 
ning old  merchant,  pulling  the  assistant's  ear.  "And  I  for- 
give you — I  did  the  same  myself." 

"  And  you  will  give  her  to  me?  " 

"  Yes — with  fifty  thousand  crowns  ;  and  I  will  leave  you  as 
much  by  will,  and  we  will  start  on  our  new  career  under  the 
name  of  a  new  firm.  We  will  do  good  business  yet,  my 
boy!"  added  the  old  man,  getting  up  and  flourishing  his 
arms.  "  I  tell  you,  son-in-law,  there  is  nothing  like  trade. 
Those  who  ask  what  pleasure  is  to  be  found  in  it  are  simple- 
tons. To  be  on  the  scent  of  a  good  bargain,  to  hold  your 
own  on  "Change,  to  watch  as  anxiously  as  at  the  gaming- 
table whether  Etienne  &  Co.  will  fail  or  not,  to  see  a  regiment 
of  Guards  march  past  all  dressed  in  your  cloth,  to  trip  your 
neighbor  up — honestly,  of  course  ! — to  make  the  goods  cheaper 
than  others  can ;  then  to  carry  out  an  undertaking  which  you 
have  planned,  which  begins,  grows,  totters,  and  succeeds  !  to 
know  the  workings  of  every  house  of  business  as  well  as  a 
minister  of  police,  so  as  never  to  make  a  mistake  ;  to  hold  up 
your  head  in  the  midst  of  wrecks,  to  have  friends  by  corre- 
spondence in  every  manufacturing  town  ;  is  not  that  a  per- 
petual game,  Joseph  ?  That  is  life,  that  is  !  I  shall  die  in 
that  harness,  like  old  Chevrel,  but  taking  it  easy  now,  all  the 
same." 

In  the  heat  of  his  eager  rhetoric,  old  Guillaume  had  scarcely 


256  SIGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND  RACKET. 

looked  at  his  assistant,  who  was  weeping  copiously.     "Why, 
Joseph,  my  poor  boy,  what  is  the  matter  ?  " 

"  Oh,  I  love  her  so  !  Monsieur  Guillaume,  that  my  heart 
fails  me  ;  I  believe ' ' 

"Well,  well,  boy,"  said  the  old  man,  touched,  "you  are 
happier  than  you  know,  by  Gad  !  For  she  loves  you.  I 
know  it." 

And  he  blinked  his  little  green  eyes  as  he  looked  at  the 
young  man. 

"Mademoiselle  Augustine!  Mademoiselle  Augustine!" 
exclaimed  Joseph  Lebas  in  his  rapture. 

He  was  about  to  rush  out  of  the  room  when  he  felt  himself 
clutched  by  a  hand  of  iron,  and  his  astonished  master  spun 
him  round  in  front  of  him  once  more. 

"What  has  Augustine  to  do  with  this  matter?"  he  asked, 
in  a  voice  which  instantly  froze  the  luckless  Joseph. 

"Is  it  not  she  that — that — I  love?"  stammered  the  as- 
sistant. 

Much  put  out  by  his  own  want  of  perspicacity,  Guillaume 
sat  down  again,  and  rested  his  long  head  in  his  hands  to  con- 
sider the  perplexing  situation  in  which  he  found  himself. 
Joseph  Lebas,  quite  shamefaced  and  in  utter  despair,  remained 
standing. 

"Joseph,"  the  draper  said  with  frigid  dignity,  "I  was 
speaking  of  Virginie.  Love  cannot  be  made  to  order,  I 
know.  I  know,  too,  that  you  can  be  trusted.  We  will  forget 
all  this.  I  will  not  let  Augustine  marry  before  Virginie. 
Your  interest  will  be  ten  per  cent." 

The  young  man,  to  whom  love  gave  I  know  not  what  power 
of  courage  and  eloquence,  clasped  his  hand,  and  spoke  in  his 
turn — spoke  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  with  so  much  warmth 
and  feeling,  that  he  altered  the  situation.  If  the  question 
had  been  a  matter  of  business,  the  old  tradesman  would  have 
had  fixed  principles  to  guide  his  decision  ;  but,  tossed  a  thou- 
sand miles  from  commerce,  on  the  ocean  of  sentiment,  with- 


SIGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND  RACKET.  257 

out  a  compass,  he  floated,  as  he  told  himself,  undecided  in 
the  face  of  such  an  unexpected  event.  Carried  away  by  his 
fatherly  kindness,  he  began  to  beat  about  the  bush. 

"  Deuce  take  it,  Joseph,  you  must  know  that  there  are  ten 
years  between  my  two  children.  Mademoiselle  Chevrel  was 
no  beauty,  still  she  has  had  nothing  to  complain  of  in  me. 
Do  as  I  did.  Come,  come,  don't  cry.  Can  you  be  so  silly? 
What  is  to  be  done?  It  can  be  managed  perhaps.  There  is 
always  some  way  out  of  a  scrape.  And  we  men  are  not  always 
devoted  Celadons  to  our  wives — you  understand  ?  Madame 
Guillaume  is  very  pious.  Come.  By  Gad,  boy,  give  your 
arm  to  Augustine  this  morning  as  we  go  to  mass." 

These  were  the  phrases  spoken  at  random  by  the  old  draper, 
and  their  conclusion  made  the  lover  happy.  He  was  already 
thinking  of  a  friend  of  his  as  a  match  for  Mademoiselle  Vir- 
ginie,  as  he  went  out  of  the  smoky  office,  pressing  his  future 
father-in-law's  hand,  after  saying  with  a  knowing  look  that  all 
would  turn  out  for  the  best. 

"  What  will  Madame  Guillaume  say  to  it?"  was  the  idea 
that  greatly  troubled  the  worthy  merchant  when  he  found 
himself  alone. 

At  breakfast  Madame  Guillaume  and  Virginie,  to  whom  the 
draper  had  not  as  yet  confided  his  disappointment,  cast  mean- 
ing glances  at  Joseph  Lebas,  who  was  extremely  embarrassed. 
The  young  assistant's  bashfulness  commended  him  to  his 
mother-in-law's  good  graces.  The  matron  became  so  cheerful 
that  she  smiled  as  she  looked  at  her  husband,  and  allowed  her- 
self some  little  pleasantries  of  time-honored  acceptance  in  such 
simple  families.  She  wondered  whether  Joseph  or  Virginie 
were  the  taller,  to  ask  them  to  compare  their  height.  This 
preliminary  fooling  brought  a  cloud  to  the  master's  brow,  and 
he  even  made  such  a  point  of  decorum  that  he  desired  Augustine 
to  take  the  assistant's  arm  on  their  way  to  Saint-Leu.  Madame 
Guillaume,  surprised  at  this  manly  delicacy,  honored  her  hus- 
band with  a  nod  of  approval.  So  the  procession  left  the  house 
17 


258  SIGN  OF   THE    CAT  AND   RACKET. 

in  such  order  as  to  suggest  no  suspicious  meaning  to  the  neigh- 
bors. 

"Does  it  not  seem  to  you,  Mademoiselle  Augustine,"  said 
the  assistant,  and  he  trembled,  "  that  the  wife  of  a  merchant 
whose  credit  is  as  good  as  Monsieur  Guillaume's,  for  instance, 
might  enjoy  herself  a  little  more  than  madame  your  mother 
does?  Might  wear  diamonds — or  keep  a  carriage?  For  my 
part,  if  I  were  to  marry,  I  should  be  glad  to  take  all  the  work 
and  see  my  wife  happy.  I  would  not  put  her  into  the  count- 
ing-house. In  the  drapery  business,  you  see,  a  woman  is  not 
so  necessary  now  as  formerly.  Monsieur  Guillaume  was  quite 
right  to  act  as  he  did — and,  beside,  his  wife  liked  it.  But  so 
long  as  a  woman  knows  how  to  turn  her  hand  to  the  book- 
keeping, the  correspondence,  the  retail  business,  the  orders, 
and  her  housekeeping,  so  as  not  to  sit  idle,  that  is  enough. 
At  seven  o'clock,  when  the  store  is  shut,  I  shall  take  my  plea- 
sures, go  to  the  play,  and  into  company.  But  you  are  not 
listening  to  me." 

"Yes,  indeed,  Monsieur  Joseph.  What  do  you  think  of 
painting?  That  is  a  fine  calling." 

"  Yes.  I  know  a  master  house-painter,  Monsieur  Lourdois. 
He  is  well-to-do." 

Thus  conversing,  the  family  reached  the  church  of  Saint- 
Leu.  There  Madame  Guillaume  reasserted  her  rights,  and,  for 
the  first  time,  placed  Augustine  next  to  herself,  Virginie  taking 
her  place  on  the  fourth  chair  next  to  Lebas.  During  the 
sermon  all  went  well  between  Augustine  and  Theodore,  who, 
standing  behind  a  pillar,  worshiped  his  Madonna  with  fervent 
devotion  ;  but  at  the  elevation  of  the  host,  Madame  Guillaume 
discovered,  rather  late,  that  her  daughter  Augustine  was  hold- 
ing her  prayer-book  upside  down.  She  was  about  to  speak  to 
her  strongly,  when,  lowering  her  veil,  she  interrupted  her  own 
devotions  to  look  in  the  direction  where  her  daughter's  eyes 
found  attraction.  By  the  help  of  her  spectacles  she  saw  the 
young  artist,  whose  fashionable  elegance  seemed  to  proclaim 


SIGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND  RACKET.  259 

him  a  cavalry  officer  on  leave  rather  than  a  tradesman  of  the 
neighborhood.  It  is  difficult  to  conceive  of  the  state  of  violent 
agitation  in  which  Madame  Guillaume  found  herself — she,  who 
flattered  herself  on  having  brought  up  her  daughters  to  perfec- 
tion— on  discovering  in  Augustine  a  clandestine  passion  of 
which  her  prudery  and  ignorance  exaggerated  the  perils.  She 
believed  her  daughter  to  be  cankered  to  the  core. 

"  Hold  your  book  right  way  up,  miss,"  she  muttered  in  a 
low  voice,  tremulous  with  wrath.  She  snatched  away  the  tell- 
tale prayer-book  and  returned  it  with  the  letter-press  right 
side  up.  "  Do  not  allow  your  eyes  to  look  anywhere  but  at 
your  prayers,"  she  added,  "or  I  shall  have  something  to  say 
to  you.  Your  father  and  I  will  talk  to  you  after  church." 

These  words  came  like  a  thunderbolt  on  poor  Augustine. 
She  felt  faint ;  but,  torn  between  the  distress  she  felt  and  the 
dread  of  causing  a  commotion  in  church,  she  bravely  con- 
cealed her  anguish.  It  was,  however,  easy  to  discern  the 
stormy  state  of  her  soul  from  the  trembling  of  her  prayer- 
book,  and  the  tears  which  dropped  on  every  page  she  turned. 
From  the  furious  glare  shot  at  him  by  Madame  Guillaume  the 
artist  saw  the  peril  into  which  his  love  affair  had  fallen  j  he 
went  out,  with  a  raging  soul,  determined  to  venture  all. 

"Go  to  your  room  miss !  "  said  Madame  Guillaume,  on 
their  return  home;  "we  will  send  for  you,  but  take  care  not 
to  quit  it." 

The  conference  between  the  husband  and  wife  was  con- 
ducted so  secretly  that  at  first  nothing  was  heard  of  it.  Vir- 
ginia, however,  who  had  tried  to  give  her  sister  courage  by  a 
variety  of  gentle  remonstrances,  carried  her  good-nature  so 
far  as  to  listen  at  the  door  of  her  mother's  bedroom  where 
the  discussion  was  held,  to  catch  a  word  or  two.  The  first 
time  she  went  down  to  the  lower  floor  she  heard  her  father 
exclaim :  "Then,  madame,  do  you  wish  to  kill  your  daughter? " 

"My  poor  dear!"  said  Virginie,  in  tears,  "papa  takes 
your  part." 


260  SIGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND  RACKET. 

"  And  what  do  they  want  to  do  to  Theodore?"  asked  the 
innocent  girl. 

Virginie,  inquisitive,  went  down  again  ;  but  this  time  she 
stayed  longer ;  she  learned  that  Joseph  Lebas  loved  Augustine. 
It  was  written  that  on  this  memorable  day,  this  house, 
generally  so  peaceful,  should  be  a  hell.  Monsieur  Guillaume 
brought  Joseph  Lebas  to  despair  by  telling  him  of  Augustine's 
love  for  a  stranger.  Lebas,  who  had  advised  his  friend  to 
become  a  suitor  for  Mademoiselle  Virginie,  saw  all  his  hopes 
wrecked.  Mademoiselle  Virginie,  overcome  by  hearing  that 
Joseph  had,  in  a  way,  refused  her,  had  a  sick  headache.  The 
dispute  that  had  arisen  from  the  discussion  between  Monsieur 
and  Madame  Guillaume,  when,  for  the  third  time  in  their 
lives,  they  had  been  of  antagonistic  opinions,  had  shown 
itself  in  a  terrible  form.  Finally,  at  half-past  four  in  the 
afternoon,  Augustine,  pale,  trembling,  and  with  red  eyes,  was 
haled  before  her  father  and  mother.  The  poor  child  artlessly 
related  the  too  brief  tale  of  her  love.  Reassured  by  a  speech 
from  her  father,  who  promised  to  listen  to  her  in  silence,  she 
gathered  courage  as  she  pronounced  to  her  parents  the  name 
of  Theodore  de  Sommervieux,  with  a  mischievous  little  em- 
phasis on  the  aristocratic  de.  And,  yielding  to  the  unknown 
charm  of  talking  of  her  feelings,  she  was  brave  enough  to 
declare  with  innocent  decision  that  she  loved  Monsieur  de 
Sommervieux,  that  she  had  written  to  him,  and  she  added, 
with  tears  in  her  eyes :  "  To  sacrifice  me  to  another  man 
would  make  me  wretched." 

"  But,  Augustine,  you  cannot  surely  know  what  a  painter 
is?  "  cried  her  mother  with  horror. 

"Madame  Guillaume  !  "  said  the  old  man,  compelling  her 
to  silence.  "Augustine,"  he  went  on,  "artists  are  generally 
little  better  than  beggars.  They  are  too  extravagant  not  to 
be  always  a  bad  sort.  I  served  the  late  Monsieur  Joseph 
Vernet,  the  late  Monsieur  Lekain,  and  the  late  Monsieur 
Noverre.  Oh,  if  you  could  only  know  the  tricks  played  on 


SIGN  OF   THE   CAT  AND  RACKET.  261 

poor  Father  Chevrel  by  that  Monsieur  Noverre,  by  the 
Chevalier  de  Saint-Georges,  and  especially  by  Monsieur 
Philidor !  They  are  a  set  of  rascals ;  I  know  them  well ! 
They  all  have  a  gab  and  nice  manners.  Ah,  your  Monsieur 
Sumer ,  Somm " 

"De  Sommervieux,  papa." 

"Well,  well,  de  Sommervieux,  well  and  good.  He  can 
never  have  been  half  so  sweet  to  you  as  Monsieur  le  Chevalier 
de  Saint-Georges  was  to  me  the  day  I  got  a  verdict  of  the 
consuls  against  him.  And  in  those  days  they  were  gentlemen 
of  quality." 

"  But,  father,  Monsieur  Theodore  is  of  good  family,  and 
he  wrote  me  that  he  is  rich ;  his  father  was  called  Chevalier 
de  Sommervieux  before  the  Revolution." 

At  these  words  Monsieur  Guillaume  looked  at  his  terrible 
better  half,  who,  like  an  angry  woman,  sat  tapping  the  floor 
with  her  foot  while  keeping  sullen  silence ;  she  avoided  even 
casting  wrathful  looks  at  Augustine,  appearing  to  leave  to 
Monsieur  Guillaume  the  whole  responsibility  in  so  grave  a 
matter,  since  her  opinion  was  not  listened  to.  Nevertheless, 
in  spite  of  her  apparent  self-control,  when  she  saw  her  husband 
giving  way  so  mildly  under  a  catastrophe  which  had  no  con- 
cern with  business,  she  exclaimed — 

"Really,  monsieur,  you  are  so  weak  with  your  daughters! 
However " 

The  sound  of  a  carriage,  which  stopped  at  the  door,  inter- 
rupted the  rating  which  the  old  draper  already  quaked  at.  In 
a  minute  Madame  Roquin  was  standing  in  the  midde  of  the 
room,  and  looking  at  the  actors  in  this  domestic  scene :  "  I 
know  all,  my  dear  cousin,"  said  she,  with  a  patronizing  air. 

Madame  Roquin  made  the  great  mistake  of  supposing  that 
a  Paris  notary's  wife  could  play  the  part  of  a  favorite  of 
fashion. 

"  I  know  all,"  she  repeated,  "  and  I  have  come  into  Noah's 
Ark,  like  the  dove,  with  the  olive-branch.  I  read  that  alle- 


262  SIGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND  RACKET. 

gory  in  the  'Genius  of  Christianity,'  "  she  added,  turning  to 
Madame  Guillaume ;  "  the  allusion  ought  to  please  you, 
cousin.  Do  you  know,"  she  went  on,  smiling  at  Augustine, 
"that  Monsieur  de  Sommervieux  is  a  charming  man?  He 
gave  me  my  portrait  this  morning,  painted  by  a  master's 
hand.  It  is  worth  at  least  six  thousand  francs."  And  at 
these  words  she  patted  Monsieur  Guillaume  on  the  arm.  The 
old  draper  could  not  help  making  a  grimace  with  his  lips, 
which  was  peculiar  to  him. 

"I  know  Monsieur  de  Sommervieux  very  well,"  the  Dove 
ran  on.  "He  has  come  to  my  evenings  these  fourteen  days 
past,  and  made  them  delightful.  He  has  told  me  all  his  woes, 
and  commissioned  me  to  plead  for  him.  I  know  since  this 
morning  that  he  adores  Augustine,  and  he  shall  have  her. 
Ah,  cousin,  do  not  shake  your  head  in  refusal.  He  will  be 
created  baron,  I  can  tell  you,  and  has  just  been  made  chev- 
alier of  the  Legion  of  Honor,  by  the  Emperor  himself,  at  the 
Salon.  Roquin  is  now  his  lawyer,  and  knows  all  his  affairs. 
Well !  Monsieur  de  Sommervieux  has  twelve  thousand  francs 
a  year  in  good  landed  estate.  Do  you  know  that  the  father- 
in-law  of  such  a  man  may  get  a  rise  in  life — be  mayor  of  his 
arrondissement,  for  instance.  Have  we  not  seen  Monsieur 
Dupont  become  a  count  of  the  Empire  and  a  senator,  all 
because  he  went  as  mayor  to  congratulate  the  Emperor  on  his 
entry  into  Vienna?  Oh,  this  marriage  must  take  place  !  For 
my  part,  I  adore  the  dear  young  man.  His  behavior  to  Au- 
gustine is  only  met  with  in  romances.  Be  easy,  little  one, 
you  shall  be  happy,  and  every  girl  will  wish  she  were  in  your 
place.  Madame  la  Duchesse  de  Carigliano,  who  comes  to 
my  'At  Homes,'  raves  about  Monsieur  de  Sommervieux.  Some 
spiteful  people  say  she  only  comes  to  me  to  meet  him ;  as  if 
a  duchess  of  yesterday  was  doing  too  much  honor  to  a  Chevrel, 
whose  family  have  been  respected  citizens  these  hundred  years  ! 

"  Augustine,"  Madame  Roquin  went  on,  after  a  short  pause, 
"I  have  seen  the   portrait.     Heavens!     How  lovely  it  isl 


S/G tf  OF  THE   CAT  AND  RACKET.  263 

Do  you  know  that  the  Emperor  wanted  to  have  it?  He 
laughed,  and  said  to  the  deputy  high  constable  that  if  there 
were  many  women  like  that  at  his  court  while  all  the  kings 
visited  it,  he  should  have  no  difficulty  about  preserving  the 
peace  of  Europe.  Is  not  that  a  compliment?" 

The  tempests  with  which  the  day  had  begun  were  to  re- 
semble those  of  nature,  by  ending  in  clear  and  serene  weather. 
Madame  Roquin  displayed  so  much  address  in  her  harangue, 
she  was  able  to  touch  so  many  strings  in  the  dry  hearts  of 
Monsieur  and  Madame  Guillaume,  that  at  last  she  hit  on  one 
which  she  could  work  upon.  At  this  strange  period  com- 
merce and  finance  were  more  than  ever  possessed  by  the  crazy 
mania  for  seeking  alliance  with  rank ;  and  the  generals  of  the 
Empire  took  full  advantage  of  this  desire.  Monsieur  Guil- 
laume, as  a  singular  exception,  opposed  this  deplorable  crav- 
ing. His  favorite  axioms  were  that,  to  secure  happiness,  a 
woman  must  marry  a  man  of  her  own  class ;  that  every  one 
was  punished  sooner  or  later  for  having  climbed  too  high  ; 
that  love  could  so  little  endure  under  the  worries  of  a  house- 
hold, that  both  husband  and  wife  needed  sound  good  qualities 
to  be  happy ;  that  it  would  not  do  for  one  to  be  far  in  advance 
of  the  other,  because,  above  everything,  they  must  understand 
each  other;  if  a  man  spoke  Greek  and  his  wife  Latin,  they 
might  come  to  die  of  hunger.  He  had  himself  invented  this 
sort  of  adage.  And  he  compared  such  marriages  to  old- 
fashioned  materials  of  mixed  silk  and  wool,  in  which  the  silk 
always  at  last  wore  through  the  wool.  Still,  there  is  so  much 
vanity  at  the  bottom  of  man's  heart  that  the  prudence  of  the 
pilot  who  steered  the  Cat  and  Racket  so  wisely  gave  way 
before  Madame  Roquin's  aggressive  volubility.  Austere 
Madame  Guillaume  was  the  first  to  see  in  her  daughter's  affec- 
tion a  reason  for  abdicating  her  principles  and  for  consenting 
to  receive  Monsieur  de  Sommervieux,  whom  she  promised 
herself  she  would  put  under  severe  inquisition. 

The  old  draper  went  to  look  for  Joseph  Lebas,  and  inform 


264  SIGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND   RACKET. 

him  of  the  state  of  affairs.  At  half-past  six,  the  dining-room 
immortalized  by  the  artist  saw,  united  under  its  skylight,  Mon- 
sieur and  Madame  Roquin,  the  young  painter  and  his  charm- 
ing Augustine,  Joseph  Lebas,  who  found  his  happiness  in 
patience,  and  Mademoiselle  Virginie,  convalescent  from  her 
headache.  Monsieur  and  Madame  Guillaume  saw  in  per- 
spective both  their  children  married,  and  the  fortunes  of  the 
Cat  and  Racket  once  more  in  skillful  hands.  Their  satisfaction 
was  at  its  height  when,  at  dessert,  Theodore  made  them  a 
present  of  the  wonderful  picture  which  they  had  failed  to  see, 
representing  the  interior  of  the  old  store,  and  to  which  they 
all  owed  so  much  happiness. 

"Isn't  it  pretty!  "  cried  Guillaume.  "And  to  think  that 
any  one  would  pay  thirty  thousand  francs  for  that !  " 

"Because  you  can  see  my  lappets  in  it,"  said  Madame 
Guillaume. 

"And  the  cloth  unrolled  !  "  added  Lebas ;  "  you  might  take 
it  up  in  your  hand." 

"Drapery  always  comes  out  well,"  replied  the  painter. 
"  We  should  be  only  too  happy,  we  modern  artists,  if  we  could 
touch  the  perfection  of  antique  drapery." 

"So  you  like  drapery!"  cried  old  Guillaume.  "Well, 
then,  by  Gad  !  shake  hands  on  that,  my  young  friend.  Since 
you  can  respect  trade,  we  shall  understand  each  other.  And 
why  should  it  be  despised?  The  world  began  with  trade, 
since  Adam  sold  Paradise  for  an  apple.  He  did  not  strike  a 
good  bargain  though  !  "  And  the  old  man  roared  with  honest 
laughter,  encouraged  by  the  champagne,  which  he  sent  round 
with  a  liberal  hand.  The  band  that  covered  the  young  artist's 
eyes  was  so  thick  that  he  thought  his  future  parents  amiable. 
He  was  not  above  enlivening  them  by  a  few  jests  in  the  best 
taste.  So  he,  too,  pleased  every  one.  In  the  evening,  when 
the  drawing-room,  furnished  with  what  Madame  Guillaume 
called  "everything  handsome,"  was  deserted,  and  while  she 
flitted  from  the  table  to  the  mantel-piece,  from  the  candelabra 


SIGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND  RACKET.  265 

to  the  tall  candlesticks,  hastily  blowing  out  the  wax-lights,  the 
worthy  draper,  who  was  always  clear-sighted  when  money  was 
in  question,  called  Augustine  to  him,  and,  seating  her  on  his 
knee,  spoke  as  follows : 

"  My  dear  child,  you  shall  marry  your  Sommervieux  since 
you  insist ;  you  may,  if  you  like,  risk  your  capital  in  happiness. 
But  I  am  not  going  to  be  hoodwinked  by  the  thirty  thousand 
francs  to  be  made  by  spoiling  good  canvas.  Money  that  is 
lightly  earned  is  lightly  spent.  Did  I  not  hear  that  hare- 
brained youngster  declare  this  evening  that  money  was  made 
round  that  it  might  roll.  If  it  is  round  for  spendthrifts,  it  is 
flat  for  saving  folk  who  pile  it  up.  Now,  my  child,  that  fine 
gentleman  talks  of  giving  you  carriages  and  diamonds  !  He 
has  money,  let  him  spend  it  on  you  ;  so  be  it.  It  is  no  con- 
cern of  mine.  But  as  to  what  I  can  give  you,  I  will  not  have 
the  crown-pieces  I  have  picked  up  with  so  much  toil  wasted 
in  carriages  and  frippery.  Those  who  spend  too  fast  never 
grow  rich.  A  hundred  thousand  crowns,  which  is  your  for- 
tune, will  not  buy  up  Paris.  It  is  all  very  well  to  look  forward 
to  a  few  hundred  thousand  francs  to  be  yours  some  day;  I  shall 
keep  you  waiting  for  them  as  long  as  possible,  by  Gad !  So  I 
took  your  lover  aside,  and  a  man  who  managed  the  Lecocq 
bankruptcy  had  not  much  difficulty  in  persuading  the  artist  to 
marry  under  a  settlement  of  his  wife's  money  on  herself.  I 
will  keep  an  eye  on  the  marriage-contract  to  see  that  what  he 
is  to  settle  on  you  is  safely  tied  up.  So  now,  my  child,  I  hope 
to  be  a  grandfather,  by  Gad  !  I  will  begin  at  once  to  lay  up 
for  my  grandchildren ;  but  swear  to  me,  here  and  now,  never 
to  sign  any  papers  relating  to  money  without  my  advice ;  and 
if  I  go  soon  to  join  old  Father  Chevrel,  promise  to  consult 
young  Lebas,  your  brother-in-law." 

"Yes,  father,  I  swear  it." 

At  these  words,  spoken  in  a  gentle  voice,  the  old  man 
kissed  his  daughter  on  both  cheeks.  That  night  the  lovers 
slept  as  soundly  as  Monsieur  and  Madame  Guillaume. 


266  SIGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND  RACKET. 

Some  few  months  after  this  memorable  Sunday  the  high 
altar  of  Saint-Leu  was  the  scene  of  two  very  different  wed- 
dings. Augustine  and  Theodore  appeared  in  all  the  radiance 
of  happiness,  their  eyes  beaming  with  love,  dressed  with  ele- 
gance, while  a  fine  carriage  waited  for  them.  Virginie,  who 
had  come  in  a  good  hired  fly  with  the  rest  of  the  family, 
humbly  followed  her  younger  sister,  dressed  in  the  simplest 
fashion,  like  a  shadow  necessary  to  the  harmony  of  the  pic- 
ture. Monsieur  Guillaume  had  exerted  himself  to  the  utmost 
in  the  church  to  get  Virginie  married  before  Augustine,  but 
the  priests,  high  and  low,  persisted  in  addressing  the  more 
elegant  of  the  two  brides.  He  heard  some  of  his  neighbors 
highly  approving  the  good  sense  of  Mademoiselle  Virginie, 
who  was  making,  as  they  said,  the  more  substantial  match, 
and  remaining  faithful  to  the  neighborhood ;  while  they  fired 
a  few  taunts,  prompted  by  envy  of  Augustine,  who  was  marry- 
ing an  artist  and  a  man  of  rank ;  adding,  with  a  sort  of  dis- 
may, that  if  the  Guillaumes  were  ambitious,  there  was  an 
end  to  the  business.  An  old  fan-maker  having  remarked  that 
such  a  prodigal  would  soon  bring  his  wife  to  beggary.  Father 
Guillaume  prided  himself  in  secret  for  his  prudence  in  the 
matter  of  marriage-settlements.  In  the  evening,  after  a  splen- 
did ball,  followed  by  one  of  those  substantial  suppers  of 
which  the  memory  is  dying  out  in  the  present  generation, 
Monsieur  and  Madame  Guillaume  remained  in  a  fine  house 
belonging  to  them  in  the  Rue  du  Colombier,  where  the  wed- 
ding had  been  held  ;  Monsieur  and  Madame  Lebas  returned 
in  their  hack  to  the  old  home  in  the  Rue  Saint-Denis,  to  steer 
the  good  ship  Cat  and  Racket.  The  artist,  intoxicated  with 
happiness,  carried  off  his  beloved  Augustine,  and,  eagerly 
lifting  her  out  of  their  carriage  when  it  reached  the  Rue  des 
Trois-Freres,  led  her  to  an  apartment  embellished  by  all  the 
arts. 

The  fever  of  passion  which  possessed  Theodore  made  a 
year  fly  over  the  young  couple  without  a  single  cloud  to  dim 


SIGN   OF  THE  CAT  AND  RACKET.  267 

the  blue  sky  under  which  they  lived.  Life  did  not  hang 
heavy  on  the  lovers'  hands.  Theodore  lavished  on  every  day 
inexhaustible  witcheries*  of  enjoyment,  and  he  delighted  to 
vary  the  transports  of  passion  by  the  soft  languor  of  those 
hours  of  repose  when  souls  soar  so  high  that  they  seem  to 
have  forgotten  all  bodily  union.  Augustine  was  too  happy 
for  reflection ;  she  floated  on  an  undulating  tide  of  rapture  ; 
she  thought  she  could  not  do  enough  by  abandoning  herself 
to  sanctioned  and  sacred  married  love;  simple  and  artless, 
she  had  no  coquetry,  no  reserves,  none  of  the  dominion 
which  a  worldly-minded  girl  acquires  over  her  husband  by 
ingenious  caprice  ;  she  loved  too  well  to  calculate  for  the 
future,  and  never  imagined  that  so  exquisite  a  life  could  come 
to  an  end.  Happy  in  being  her  husband's  sole  delight,  she 
believed  that  her  inextinguishable  love  would  always  be  her 
greatest  grace  in  his  eyes,  as  her  devotion  and  obedience 
would  be  a  perennial  charm.  And,  indeed,  the  ecstasy  of 
love  had  made  her  so  brilliantly  lovely  that  her  beauty  filled 
her  with  pride,  and  gave  her  confidence  that  she  could  always 
reign  over  a  man  so  easy  to  kindle  as  Monsieur  de  Sommer- 
vieux.  Thus  her  position  as  a  wife  brought  her  no  knowledge 
but  the  lessons  of  love. 

In  the  midst  of  her  happiness,  she  was  still  the  simple  child 
who  had  lived  in  obscurity  in  the  Rue  Saint-Denis,  and  she 
never  thought  of  acquiring  the  manners,  the  information,  the 
tone  of  the  world  she  had  to  live  in.  Her  words  being  the 
words  of  love,  she  revealed  in  them,  no  doubt,  a  certain 
pliancy  of  mind  and  a  certain  refinement  of  speech  :  but  she 
used  the  language  common  to  all  women  when  they  find  them- 
selves plunged  in  passion,  which  seems  to  be  their  element. 
When,  by  chance,  Augustine  expressed  an  idea  that  did  not 
harmonize  with  Theodore's,  the  young  artist  laughed,  as  we 
laugh  at  the  first  mistakes  of  a  foreigner,  though  they  end  by 
annoying  us  if  they  are  not  corrected. 
*  Fioriture. 


268  SIGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND  RACKET. 

In  spite  of  all  this  lovemaking,  by  the  end  of  this  year,  as 
delightful  as  it  was  swift,  Sommervieux  felt  one  morning  the 
need  for  resuming  his  work  and  his  old  habits.  His  wife  was 
expecting  their  first  child.  He  saw  some  friends  again. 
During  the  tedious  discomforts  of  the  year  when  a  young  wife 
is  nursing  an  infant  for  the  first  time,  he  worked,  no  doubt, 
with  zeal,  but  he  occasionally  sought  diversion  in  the  fashion- 
able world.  The  house  which  he  was  best  pleased  to  frequent 
was  that  of  the  Duchesse  de  Carigliano,  who  had  at  last 
attracted  the  celebrated  artist  to  her  parties.  When  Augus- 
tine was  quite  well  again,  and  her  boy  no  longer  required  the 
assiduous  care  which  debars  a  mother  from  social  pleasures, 
Theodore  had  come  to  the  stage  of  wishing  to  know  the  joys 
of  satisfied  vanity  to  be  found  in  society  by  a  man  who  shows 
himself  with  a  handsome  woman,  the  object  of  envy  and  ad- 
miration. 

To  figure  in  drawing-rooms  with  the  reflected  lustre  of  her 
husband's  fame,  and  to  find  other  women  envious  of  her,  was 
to  Augustine  a  new  harvest  of  pleasures ;  but  it  was  the  last 
gleam  of  conjugal  happiness.  She  first  wounded  her  husband's 
vanity  when,  in  spite  of  vain  efforts,  she  betrayed  her  ignorance, 
the  inelegance  of  her  language,  and  the  narrowness  of  her  ideas. 
Sommervieux' s  nature,  subjugated  for  nearly  two  years  and  a 
half  by  the  first  transports  of  love,  now,  in  the  calm  of  less 
new  possession,  recovered  its  bent  and  habits,  for  a  while 
diverted  from  their  channel.  Poetry,  painting,  and  the 
subtle  joys  of  imagination  have  inalienable  rights  over  a  lofty 
spirit.  These  cravings  of  a  powerful  soul  had  not  been 
starved  in  Theodore  during  these  two  years ;  they  had  only 
found  fresh  pasture.  As  soon  as  the  meadows  of  love  had  been 
ransacked,  and  the  artist  had  gathered  roses  and  cornflowers 
as  the  children  do,  so  greedily  that  he  did  not  see  that  his 
hands  could  hold  no  more,  the  scene  changed.  When  the 
painter  showed  his  wife  the  sketches  for  his  finest  compositions 
he  heard  her  exclaim,  as  her  father  had  done :  "  How  pretty  !  " 


SIGN-  OF  THE   CAT  AND  RACKET.  269 

This  tepid  admiration  was  not  the  outcome  of  conscientious 
feeling,  but  of  her  faith  on  the  strength  of  love. 

Augustine  cared  more  for  a  look  than  for  the  finest  picture. 
The  only  "sublime"  she  knew  was  that  of  the  heart.  At 
last  Theodore  could  not  resist  the  evidence  of  the  cruel  fact — 
his  wife  was  insensible  to  poetry,  she  did  not  dwell  in  his 
sphere,  she  could  not  follow  him  in  all  his  vagaries,  his  imag- 
inings, his  joys  and  his  sorrows ;  she  walked  groveling  in 
the  world  of  reality,  while  his  head  was  in  the  skies.  Common 
minds  cannot  appreciate  the  perennial  sufferings  of  a  being 
who,  while  bound  to  another  by  the  most  intimate  affection, 
is  obliged  constantly  to  suppress  the  dearest  flights  of  his  soul, 
and  to  thrust  down  into  the  void  those  images  which  a 
magic  power  compels  him  to  create.  To  him  the  torture  is 
all  the  more  intolerable  because  his  feeling  toward  his  com- 
panion enjoins,  as  its  first  law,  that  they  should  have  no 
concealments,  but  mingle  the  aspirations  of  their  thought  as 
perfectly  as  the  effusions  of  their  soul.  The  demands  of 
nature  are  not  to  be  cheated.  She  is  as  inexorable  as  neces- 
sity, which  is,  indeed,  a  sort  of  social  nature.  Sommervieux 
took  refuge  in  the  peace  and  silence  of  his  studio,  hoping  that 
the  habit  of  living  with  artists  might  mould  his  wife  and 
develop  in  her  the  dormant  germs  of  lofty  intelligence  which 
some  superior  minds  suppose  must  exist  in  every  being.  But 
Augustine  was  too  sincerely  religious  not  to  take  fright  at 
the  tone  of  artists.  At  the  first  dinner  Theodore  gave,  she 
heard  a  young  painter  say,  with  the  childlike  lightness,  which 
to  her  was  unintelligible,  and  which  redeems  a  jest  from  the 
taint  of  profanity,  "  But,  madame,  your  Paradise  cannot  be 
more  beautiful  than  Raphael's  Transfiguration  !  Well,  and  I 
got  tired  of  looking  at  that." 

Thus  Augustine  came  among  this  sparkling  set  in  a  spirit  of 
distrust  which  no  one  could  fail  to  see.  She  was  a  restraint 
on  their  freedom.  Now  an  artist  who  feels  restraint  is  pitiless; 
he  stays  away,  or  laughs  it  to  scorn.  Madame  Guillaume, 


270  SIGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND  RACKET. 

among  other  absurdities,  had  an  excessive  notion  of  the  dig- 
nity she  considered  the  prerogative  of  a  married  woman ;  and 
Augustine,  though  she  had  often  made  fun  of  it,  could  not 
help  a  slight  imitation  of  her  mother's  primness.  This  ex- 
treme propriety,  which  virtuous  wives  do  not  always  avoid, 
suggested  a  few  epigrams  in  the  form  of  sketches,  in  which  the 
harmless  jest  was  in  such  good  taste  that  Sommervieux  could 
not  take  offense;  and  even  if  they  had  been  more  severe, 
these  pleasantries  were  after  all  only  reprisals  from  his  friends. 
Still,  nothing  could  seem  a  trifle  to  a  spirit  so  open  as  Theo- 
dore's to  impressions  from  without.  A  coldness  insensibly 
crept  over  him,  and  inevitably  spread.  To  attain  conjugal 
happiness  we  must  climb  a  hill  whose  summit  is  a  narrow  ridge, 
close  to  a  steep  and  slippery  descent ;  the  painter's  love  was 
falling  down  this.  He  regarded  his  wife  as  incapable  of  ap- 
preciating the  moral  considerations  which  justified  him  in  his 
own  eyes  for  his  singular  behavior  to  her,  and  believed  him- 
self quite  innocent  in  hiding  from  her  the  thoughts  she  could 
not  enter  into,  and  peccadilloes  outside  the  jurisdiction  of  a 
bourgeois  conscience.  Augustine  wrapped  herself  in  sullen 
and  silent  grief.  These  unconfessed  feelings  placed  a  shroud  be- 
tween the  husband  and  wife  which  could  not  fail  to  grow  thicker 
day  by  day.  Though  her  husband  never  failed  in  considera- 
tion for  her,  Augustine  could  not  help  trembling  as  she  saw 
that  he  kept  for  the  outer  world  those  treasures  of  wit  and 
grace  that  he  formerly  would  lay  at  her  feet.  She  soon  began 
to  find  a  sinister  meaning  in  the  jocular  speeches  that  are  cur- 
rent in  the  world  as  to  the  inconstancy  of  men.  She  made 
no  complaints,  but  her  demeanor  conveyed  reproach. 

Three  years  after  her  marriage  this  pretty  young  woman, 
who  dashed  past  in  her  handsome  carriage,  and  lived  in  a 
sphere  of  glory  and  riches  to  the  envy  of  heedless  folk  incap- 
able of  taking  a  just  view  of  the  situations  of  life,  was  a  prey 
to  intense  grief.  She  lost  her  color  ;  she  reflected  ;  she  made 
comparisons ;  then  sorrow  unfolded  to  her  the  first  lessons  of 


SIGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND  RACKET.  271 

experience.  She  determined  to  restrict  herself  bravely  within 
the  round  of  duty,  hoping  that  by  this  generous  conduct  she 
might  sooner  or  later  win  back  her  husband's  love.  But  it 
was  not  so.  When  Sommervieux,  tired  with  work,  came  in 
from  his  studio,  Augustine  did  not  put  her  work  away  so 
quickly  but  that  the  painter  might  find  his  wife  mending  the 
household  linen,  and  his  own,  with  all  the  care  of  a  good 
housewife.  She  supplied  generously  and  without  a  murmur 
the  money  needed  for  his  lavishness ;  but  in  her  anxiety  to 
husband  her  dear  Theodore's  fortune,  she  was  strictly  eco- 
nomical for  herself  and  in  certain  details  of  domestic  manage- 
ment. Such  conduct  is  incompatible  with  the  easy-going 
habits  of  artists,  who,  at  the  end  of  their  life,  have  enjoyed 
it  so  keenly  that  they  never  inquire  into  the  causes  of  their 
ruin. 

It  is  useless  to  note  every  tint  of  shadow  by  which  the 
brilliant  hues  of  their  honeymoon  were  overcast  till  they  were 
lost  in  utter  blackness.  One  evening  poor  Augustine,  who 
had  for  some  time  heard  her  husband  speak  with  enthusiasm 
of  the  Duchesse  de  Carigliano,  received  from  a  friend  certain 
malignantly  charitable  warnings  as  to  the  nature  of  the  attach- 
ment which  Sommervieux  had  formed  for  this  celebrated  flirt 
of  the  Imperial  Court.  At  one-and-twenty,  in  all  the  splendor 
of  youth  and  beauty,  Augustine  saw  herself  deserted  for  a 
woman  of  six-and-thirty.  Feeling  herself  so  wretched  in  the 
midst  of  a  world  of  festivity  which  to  her  was  a  blank,  the 
poor  little  thing  could  no  longer  understand  the  admiration 
she  excited,  or  the  envy  of  which  she  was  the  object.  Her 
face  assumed  a  different  expression.  Melancholy  tinged  her 
features  with  the  sweetness  of  resignation  and  the  pallor  of 
scorned  love.  Ere  long  she,  too,  was  courted  by  the  most 
fascinating  men ;  but  she  remained  lonely  and  virtuous.  Some 
contemptuous  words  which  escaped  her  husband  filled  her 
with  incredible  despair.  A  sinister  flash  showed  her  the 
breaches  which,  as  a  result  of  her  sordid  education,  hindered 


272  SIGH  OF  THE   CAT  AND   RACKET. 

the  perfect  union  of  her  soul  with  Theodore's;  she  loved  him 
well  enough  to  absolve  him  and  condemn  herself.  She  shed 
tears  of  blood,  and  perceived,  too  late,  that  there  are  mesalli- 
ances of  the  spirit  as  well  as  of  rank  and  habits.  As  she 
recalled  the  early  raptures  of  their  union,  she  understood  the 
full  extent  of  that  lost  happiness,  and  accepted  the  conclusion 
that  so  rich  a  harvest  of  love  was  in  itself  a  whole  life,  which 
only  sorrow  could  pay  for.  At  the  same  time,  she  loved  too 
truly  to  lose  all  hope.  At  one-and-twenty  she  dared  under- 
take to  educate  herself,  and  make  her  imagination,  at  least, 
worthy  of  that  she  admired.  "If  I  am  not  a  poet,"  thought 
she,  "at  any  rate,  I  will  understand  poetry." 

Then,  with  all  the  strength  of  will,  all  the  energy  which 
every  woman  can  display  when  she  loves,  Madame  de  Som- 
mervieux  tried  to  alter  her  character,  her  manners,  and  her 
habits;  but  by  dint  of  devouring  books  and  learning  undaunt- 
edly, she  only  succeeded  in  becoming  less  ignorant.  Light- 
ness of  wit  and  the  graces  of  conversation  are  a  gift  of  nature, 
or  the  fruit  of  education  begun  in  the  cradle.  She  could 
appreciate  music  and  enjoy  it,  but  she  could  not  sing  with 
taste.  She  understood  literature  and  the  beauties  of  poetry, 
but  it  was  too  late  to  cultivate  her  refractory  memory.  She 
listened  with  pleasure  to  social  conversation,  but  she  could 
contribute  nothing  brilliant.  Her  religious  notions  and  home- 
grown prejudices  were  antagonistic  to  the  complete  emancipa- 
tion of  her  intelligence.  Finally,  a  foregone  conclusion 
against  her  had  stolen  into  Theodore's  mind,  and  this  she 
could  not  conquer.  The  artist  would  laugh  at  those  who 
flattered  him  about  his  wife,  and  his  irony  had  some  founda- 
tion ;  he  so  overawed  the  pathetic  young  creature  that,  in  his 
presence,  or  alone  with  him,  she  trembled.  Hampered  by 
her  too  eager  desire  to  please,  her  wits  and  her  knowledge 
vanished  in  one  absorbing  feeling.  Even  her  fidelity  vexed 
the  unfaithful  husband,  who  seemed  to  bid  her  do  wrong  by 
stigmatizing  her  virtue  as  insensibility.  Augustine  tried  in 


SIGN  OF   THE    CAT  AND   JtACKET.  273 

vain  to  abdicate  her  reason,  to  yield  to  her  husband's  caprices 
and  whims,  to  devote  herself  to  the  selfishness  of  his  vanity. 
Her  sacrifices  bore  no  fruit.  Perhaps  they  had  both  let  the 
moment  slip  when  souls  may  meet  in  comprehension.  One 
day  the  young  wife's  too  sensitive  heart  received  one  of  those 
blows  which  so  strain  the  bonds  of  feeling  that  they  seem  to 
be  broken.  She  withdrew  into  solitude.  But  before  long  a 
fatal  idea  suggested  to  her  to  seek  counsel  and  comfort  in  the 
bosom  of  her  family. 

So  one  morning  she  made  her  way  toward  the  grotesque 
facade  of  the  humble,  silent  home  where  she  had  spent  her 
childhood.  She  sighed  as  she  looked  up  at  the  sash-window, 
whence  one  day  she  had  sent  her  first  kiss  to  him  who  now 
shed  as  much  sorrow  as  glory  on  her  life.  Nothing  was 
changed  in  the  cavern,  where  the  drapery  business  had,  how- 
ever, started  on  a  new  life.  Augustine's  sister  filled  her 
mother's  old  place  at  the  desk.  The  unhappy  young  woman 
met  her  brother-in-law  with  his  pen  behind  his  ear  ;  he  hardly 
listened  to  her,  he  was  so  full  of  business.  The  formidable 
symptoms  of  stock-taking  were  visible  all  round  him ;  he  begged 
her  to  excuse  him.  She  was  received  coldly  enough  by  her 
sister,  who  owed  her  a  grudge.  In  fact,  Augustine,  in  her 
finery,  and  stepping  out  of  a  handsome  carriage,  had  never 
been  to  see  her  but  when  passing  by.  The  wife  of  the  prudent 
Lebas,  imagining  that  want  of  money  was  the  prime  cause  of 
this  early  call,  tried  to  keep  up  a  tone  of  reserve  which  more 
than  once  made  Augustine  smile.  The  painter's  wife  per- 
ceived that,  apart  from  the  cap  and  lappets,  her  mother  had 
found  in  Virginie  a  successor  who  could  uphold  the  ancient 
honor  of  the  Cat  and  Racket.  At  breakfast  she  observed  cer- 
tain changes  in  the  management  of  the  house  which  did  honor 
to  Lebas'  good  sense ;  the  assistants  did  not  rise  before  des- 
sert ;  they  were  allowed  to  talk,  and  the  abundant  meal  spoke 
of  comfort  without  luxury.  The  fashionable  woman  found 
some  tickets  for  a  box  at  the  Francais,  where  she  remembered 
18 


274  SIGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND  RACKET. 

having  seen  her  sister  from  time  to  time.  Madame  Lebas  had 
a  cashmere  shawl  over  her  shoulders,  of  which  the  value  bore 
witness  of  her  husband's  generosity  to  her.  In  short,  the 
couple  were  keeping  pace  with  the  times.  During  the  two- 
thirds  of  the  day  she  spent  there,  Augustine  was  touched  to 
the  heart  by  the  equable  happiness,  devoid,  to  be  sure,  of  all 
emotion,  but  equally  free  from  storms,  enjoyed  by  this  well- 
matched  couple.  They  had  accepted  life  as  a  commercial 
enterprise,  in  which,  above  all,  they  must  do  credit  to  the 
business.  Not  finding  any  great  love  in  her  husband,  Virginie 
had  set  to  work  to  create  it.  Having  by  degrees  learned  to 
esteem  and  care  for  his  wife,  the  time  that  this  happiness  had 
taken  to  germinate  was  to  Joseph  Lebas  a  guarantee  of  its 
durability.  Hence,  when  Augustine  plaintively  set  forth  her. 
painful  position,  she  had  to  face  the  deluge  of  commonplace 
morality  which  the  traditions  of  the  Rue  Saint-Denis  furnished 
to  her  sister. 

"The  mischief  is  done,  wife,"  said  Joseph  Lebas;  "we 
must  try  to  give  our  sister  good  advice."  Then  the  clever 
tradesman  ponderously  analyzed  the  resources  which  law  and 
custom  might  offer  Augustine  as  a  means  of  escape  at  this 
crisis ;  he  ticketed  every  argument,  so  to  speak,  and  arranged 
them  in  their  degrees  of  weight  under  various  categories,  as 
though  they  were  articles  of  merchandise  under  different  quali- 
ties ;  then  he  put  them  in  the  scale,  weighed  them,  and  ended 
by  showing  the  necessity  for  his  sister-in-law  taking  violent 
steps  which  could  not  satisfy  the  love  she  still  had  for  her 
husband;  and,  indeed,  the  feeling  had  revived  in  all  its 
strength  when  she  heard  Joseph  Lebas  speak  of  legal  proceed- 
ings. Augustine  thanked  them,  and  returned  home  even  more 
undecided  than  she  had  been  before  consulting  them.  She 
now  ventured  to  go  to  the  house  in  the  Rue  du  Colombier, 
intending  to  confide  her  troubles  to  her  father  and  mother; 
for  she  was  like  a  sick  man  who,  in  his  desperate  plight,  tries 
gvery  prescription,  and  even  puts  faith  in  old  wives'  remedies. 


SIGN  OF   THE    CAT  AND   RACKET.  275 

The  old  people  received  their  daughter  with  an  effusiveness 
that  touched  her  deeply.  Her  visit  brought  them  some  little 
change,  and  that  to  them  was  worth  a  fortune.  For  the  last 
four  years  they  had  gone  their  way  in  life  like  navigators  with- 
out a  goal  or  a  compass.  Sitting  by  the  chimney-corner,  they 
would  talk  over  their  disasters  under  the  old  law  of  maximum, 
of  their  great  investments  in  cloth,  of  the  way  they  had 
weathered  bankruptcies,  and,  above  all,  the  famous  failure  of 
Lecocq,  Monsieur  Guillaume's  battle  of  Marengo.  Then, 
when  they  had  exhausted  the  tale  of  lawsuits,  they  recapitu- 
lated the  sums-total  of  their  most  profitable  stock-takings,  and 
told  each  other  old  stories  of  the  Saint-Denis  quarter.  At 
two  o'clock  old  Guillaume  went  to  cast  an  eye  on  the  business 
at  the  Cat  and  Racket ;  on  his  way  back  he  called  at  all  the 
stores,  formerly  the  rivals  of  his  own,  where  the  young  pro- 
prietors hoped  to  inveigle  the  old  draper  into  some  risky 
discount,  which,  as  was  his  wont,  he  never  refused  point- 
blank.  Two  good  Normandy  horses  were  dying  of  their  own 
fat  in  the  stables  of  the  big  house ;  Madame  Guillaume  never 
used  them  but  to  drag  her  on  Sundays  to  high  mass  at  the 
parish  church.  Three  times  a  week  the  worthy  couple  kept 
open  house.  By  the  influence  of  his  son-in-law  Sommervieux, 
Monsieur  Guillaume  had  been  named  a  member  of  the  con- 
sulting board  for  the  clothing  of  the  army.  Since  her  hus- 
band had  stood  so  high  in  office,  Madame  Guillaume  had 
decided  that  she  must  receive  ;  her  rooms  were  so  crammed 
with  gold  and  silver  ornaments,  and  furniture,  tasteless  but  of 
undoubted  value,  that  the  simplest  room  in  the  house  looked 
like  a  chapel.  Economy  and  expense  seemed  to  be  struggling 
for  the  upper  hand  in  every  accessory.  It  was  as  though 
Monsieur  Guillaume  had  looked  to  a  good  investment,  even 
in  the  purchase  of  a  candlestick.  In  the  midst  of  this  bazaar, 
where  splendor  revealed  the  owners'  want  of  occupation, 
Sommervieux's  famous  picture  filled  the  place  of  honor,  and  in 
it  Monsieur  and  Madame  Guillaume  found  their  chief  conso- 


276  SIGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND   RACKET. 

lation,  turning  their  eyes,  harnessed  with  eye-glasses,  twenty 
times  a  day  on  this  presentment  of  their  past  life,  to  them  so 
active  and  amusing.  The  appearance  of  this  mansion  and 
these  rooms,  where  everything  had  an  aroma  of  staleness  and 
mediocrity,  the  spectacle  offered  by  these  two  beings,  cast 
away,  as  it  were,  on  a  rock  far  from  the  world  and  the  ideas 
which  are  life,  startled  Augustine ;  she  could  here  contemplate 
the  sequel  of  the  scene  of  which  the  first  part  had  struck  her 
at  the  house  of  Lebas — a  life  of  stir  without  movement,  a 
mechanical  and  instinctive  existence  like  that  of  the  beaver; 
and  then  she  felt  an  indefinable  pride  in  her  troubles,  as  she 
reflected  that  they  had  their  source  in  eighteen  months  of 
such  happiness  as,  in  her  eyes,  was  worth  a  thousand  lives  like 
this ;  its  vacuity  seemed  to  her  horrible.  However,  she  con- 
cealed this  not  very  charitable  feeling,  and  displayed  for  her 
parents  her  newly  acquired  accomplishments  of  mind,  and  the 
ingratiating  tenderness  that  love  had  revealed  to  her,  disposing 
them  to  listen  to  her  matrimonial  grievances.  Old  people 
have  a  weakness  for  this  kind  of  confidences.  Madame  Guil- 
laume  wanted  to  know  the  most  trivial  details  of  that  alien 
life,  which  to  her  seemed  almost  fabulous.  The  travels  of 
Baron  de  la  Houtan,  which  she  began  again  and  again  and 
never  finished,  told  her  nothing  more  unheard-of  concerning 
the  Canadian  savages. 

"What,  child,  your  husband  shuts  himself  into  a  room  with 
naked  women  !  And  you  are  so  simple  as  to  believe  that  he 
draws  them  ? ' ' 

As  she  uttered  this  exclamation,  the  grandmother  laid  her 
spectacles  on  a  little  work-table,  shook  her  skirts,  and  clasped 
her  hands  on  her  knees,  raised  by  a  foot-warmer,  her  favorite 
pedestal. 

"But,  mother,  all  artists  are  obliged  to  have  models." 

"  He  took  good  care  not  to  tell  us  that  when  he  asked 
leave  to  marry  you.  If  I  had  known  it,  I  would  never  have 
given  my  daughter  to  a  man  who  followed  such  a  trade. 


•  S7GJV  OF   THE   CAT  AXD   RACKET.  277 

Religion  forbids  such  horrors ;   they  are  immoral.     And  at 
what  time  of  night  do  you  say  he  comes  home  ?" 

"At  one  o'clock — two " 

The  old  couple  looked  at  each  other  in  utter  amazement. 

"Then  he  gambles?"  said  Monsieur  Guillaume.  "In 
my  day  only  gamblers  stayed  out  so  late." 

Augustine  made  a  face  that  scorned  the  accusation. 

"  He  must  keep  you  up  through  dreadful  nights  waiting  for 
him,"  said  Madame  Guillaume.  "But  you  go  to  bed,  don't 
you?  And  when  he  has  lost,  the  wretch  wakes  you." 

"No,  mamma,  on  the  contrary,  he  is  sometimes  in  very 
good  spirits.  Not  infrequently,  indeed,  when  it  is  fine,  he 
suggests  that  I  should  get  up  and  go  into  the  woods." 

"The  woods!  At  that  hour?  Then  have  you  such  a 
small  set  of  rooms  that  his  bedroom  and  his  sitting-rooms  are 
not  enough,  and  that  he  must  run  about?  But  it  is  just  to 
give  you  cold  that  the  wretch  proposes  such  expeditions.  He 
wants  to  get  rid  of  you.  Did  one  ever  hear  of  a  man  settled 
in  life,  a  well-behaved,  quiet  man,  galloping  about  like  a 
warlock  ? ' ' 

"But,  my  dear  mother,  you  do  not  understand  that  he 
must  have  excitement  to  fire  his  genius.  He  is  fond  of  scenes 
which " 

"  I  would  make  scenes  for  him,  fine  scenes  !  "  cried  Madame 
Guillaume,  interrupting  her  daughter.  "  How  can  you  show 
any  consideration  to  such  a  man  ?  In  the  first  place,  I  don't 
like  his  drinking  water  only  ;  it  is  not  wholesome.  Why  does 
he  object  to  see  a  woman  eating?  What  queer  notion  is  that ! 
But  he  is  mad.  All  you  tell  us  about  him  is  impossible.  A 
man  cannot  leave  his  home  without  a  word,  and  never  come 
back  for  ten  days.  And  then  he  tells  you  he  has  been  to 
Dieppe  to  paint  the  sea.  As  if  any  one  painted  the  sea !  He 
crams  you  with  a  pack  of  tales  that  are  too  absurd." 

Augustine  opened  her  lips  to  defend  her  husband ;  but 
Madame  Guillaume  enjoined  silence  with  a  wave  of  her  hand, 


278  SIGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND  RACKET.    • 

which  she  obeyed  by  a  survival  of  habit,  and  her  mother  went 
on  in  harsh  tones:  "Don't  talk  to  me  about  the  man  !  He 
never  set  foot  in  a  church  excepting  to  see  you  and  to  be 
married.  People  without  religion  are  capable  of  anything. 
Did  Guillaume  ever  dream  of  hiding  anything  from  me,  of 
spending  three  days  without  saying  a  word  to  me,  and  of 
chattering  afterward  like  a  blind  magpie?" 

"  My  dear  mother,  you  judge  superior  people  too  severely. 
If  their  ideas  were  the  same  as  other  people's  they  would  not 
be  men  of  genius." 

16  Very  well,  then  let  men  of  genius  stop  at  home  and  not 
get  married.  What !  A  man  of  genius  is  to  make  his  wife 
miserable?  And  because  he  is  a  genius  it  is  all  right! 
Genius,  genius !  It  is  not  so  very  clever  to  say  black  one 
minute  and  white  the  next,  as  he  does,  to  interrupt  other 
people,  to  dance  such  rigs  at  home,  never  to  let  you  know 
which  foot  you  are  to  stand  on,  to  compel  his  wife  never  to 
be  amused  unless  my  lord  is  in  gay  spirits,  and  to  be  dull 
when  he  is  dull." 

"But,  mother,  the  very  nature  of  such  imaginations " 

"What  are  such  'imaginations?'"  Madame  Guillaume 
went  on,  interrupting  her  daughter  again.  "Fine  ones  his 
are,  my  word  !  What  possesses  a  man  that  all  on  a  sudden, 
without  consulting  a  doctor,  he  takes  it  into  his  head  to  eat 
nothing  but  vegetables?  If  indeed  it  were  from  religious 
motives,  it  might  do  him  some  good — but  he  has  no  more 
religion  than  a  Huguenot.  Was  there  ever  a  man  known 
who,  like  him,  loved  horses  better  than  his  fellow-creatures, 
had  his  hair  curled  like  a  heathen,  placed  statues  under  muslin- 
covers,  closed  his  shutters  in  broad  day  to  work  by  lamplight? 
There,  get  along ;  if  he  were  not  so  grossly  immoral,  he  would 
be  fit  to  shut  up  in  a  lunatic  asylum.  Consult  Monsieur 
Loraux,  the  priest  at  Saint-Sulpice,  ask  his  opinion  about  it 
all,  and  he  will  tell  you  that  your  husband  does  not  behave 
like  a  Christian."  ; 


SIGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND   RACKET.  279 

"Oh,  mother,  can  you  believe " 

"  Yes,  I  do  believe.  You  loved  him,  and  you  can  see  none 
of  these  things.  But  I  can  remember  in  the  early  days  after 
your  marriage.  I  met  him  in  the  Champs-Elysees.  He  was 
on  horseback.  Well,  at  one  minute  he  was  galloping  as  hard 
as  he  could  tear,  and  then  pulled  up  to  a  walk.  I  said  to  my- 
self at  that  moment,  '  There  is  a  man  devoid  of  judgment.'  " 

"Ah,  ha  !  "  cried  Monsieur  Guillaume,  "  how  wise  I  was 
to  have  your  money  settled  on  yourself  with  such  a  queer 
fellow  for  a  husband  !  " 

When  Augustine  was  so  imprudent  as  to  set  forth  her  serious 
grievances  against  her  husband,  the  two  old  people  were 
speechless  with  indignation.  But  the  word  "divorce"  was 
ere  long  spoken  by  Madame  Guillaume.  At  the  sound  of  the 
word  divorce  the  apathetic  old  draper  seemed  to  wake  up. 
Prompted  by  his  love  for  his  daughter,  and  also  by  the  excite- 
ment which  the  proceedings  would  bring  into  his  uneventful 
life,  Father  Guillaume  took  up  the  matter.  He  made  himself 
the  leader  of  the  application  for  a  divorce,  laid  down  the  lines 
of  it,  almost  argued  the  case ;  he  offered  to  be  at  all  the 
charges,  to  see  the  lawyers,  the  pleaders,  the  judges,  to  move 
heaven  and  earth.  Madame  de  Sommervieux  was  frightened, 
she  refused  her  father's  services,  said  she  would  not  be  sepa- 
rated from  her  husband  even  if  she  were  ten  times  as  unhappy, 
and  talked  no  more  about  her  sorrows.  After  being  over- 
whelmed by  her  parents  with  all  the  little  wordless  and  con- 
soling kindnesses  by  which  the  old  couple  tried  in  vain  to 
make  up  to  her  for  her  distress  of  heart,  Augustine  went  away, 
feeling  the  impossibility  of  making  a  superior  mind  intelligible 
to  weak  intellects.  She  had  learned  that  a  wife  must  hide 
from  every  one,  even  from  her  parents,  woes  for  which  it  is  so 
difficult  to  find  sympathy.  The  storms  and  sufferings  of  the 
upper  spheres  are  appreciated  only  by  the  lofty  spirits  who 
inhabit  there.  In  every  circumstance  we  can  only  be  judged 
by  our  equals. 


280  SIGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND   RACKET. 

Thus  poor  Augustine  found  herself  thrown  back  on  the 
horror  of  her  meditations,  in  the  cold  atmosphere  of  her 
home.  Study  was  indifferent  to  her,  since  study  had  not 
brought  her  back  her  husband's  heart.  Initiated  into  the 
secret  of  these  souls  of  fire,  but  bereft  of  their  resources,  she 
was  compelled  to  share  their  sorrows  without  sharing  their 
pleasures.  She  was  disgusted  with  the  world,  which  to  her 
seemed  mean  and  small  as  compared  with  the  incidents  of 
passion.  In  short,  her  life  was  a  failure. 

One  evening  an  idea  flashed  upon  her  that  lighted  up  her 
dark  grief  like  a  beam  from  heaven.  Such  an  idea  could 
never  have  smiled  on  a  heart  less  pure,  less  virtuous  than  hers. 
She  determined  to  go  to  the  Duchesse  de  Carigliano,  not  to 
ask  her  to  give  her  back  her  husband's  heart,  but  to  learn  the 
arts  by  which  it  had  been  captured ;  to  engage  the  interest  of 
this  haughty  fine  lady  for  the  mother  of  her  lover's  children ; 
to  appeal  to  her  and  make  her  the  instrument  of  her  future 
happiness,  since  she  was  the  cause  of  her  present  wretchedness. 

So  one  day  Augustine,  timid  as  she  was,  but  armed  with 
supernatural  courage,  got  into  her  carriage  at  two  in  the  after- 
noon to  try  for  admittance  to  the  boudoir  of  the  famous 
coquette,  who  was  never  visible  till  that  hour.  Madame  de 
Sommervieux  had  not  yet  seen  any  of  the  ancient  and  mag- 
nificent mansions  of  the  Faubourg  Saint-Germain.  As  she 
made  her  way  through  the  stately  corridors,  the  handsome 
staircases,  the  vast  drawing-rooms — full  of  flowers,  though  it 
was  in  the  depth  of  winter,  and  decorated  with  the  taste 
peculiar  to  women  born  to  opulence  or  to  the  elegant  habits 
of  the  aristocracy — Augustine  felt  a  terrible  clutch  at  her 
heart ;  she  coveted  the  secrets  of  an  elegance  of  which  she 
had  never  had  an  idea  ;  she  breathed  an  air  of  grandeur  which 
explained  the  attraction  of  the  house  for  her  husband.  When 
she  reached  the  private  rooms  of  the  duchess  she  was  filled 
with  jealousy  and  a  sort  of  despair,  as  she  admired  the  luxuri- 
ous arrangement  of  the  furniture,  the  draperies  and  the  hang- 


SIGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND  RACKET.  281 

ings.  Here  disorder  was  a  grace,  here  luxury  affected  a 
certain  contempt  of  splendor.  The  fragrance  that  floated  in 
the  warm  air  flattered  the  sense  of  smell  without  offending  it. 
The  accessories  of  the  rooms  were  in  harmony  with  a  view, 
through  plate-glass  windows,  of  the  lawns  in  a  garden  planted 
with  evergreen  trees.  It  was  all  bewitching,  and  the  art  of  it 
was  not  perceptible.  The  whole  spirit  of  the  mistress  of  these 
rooms  pervaded  the  drawing-room  where  Augustine  awaited 
her.  She  tried  to  divine  her  rival's  character  from  the  aspect 
of  the  scattered  objects  ;  but  there  was  here  something,  as 
impenetrable  in  the  disorder  as  in  the  symmetry,  and  to  the 
simple-minded  young  wife  all  was  a  sealed  letter.  All  that  she 
could  discern  was  that,  as  a  woman,  the  duchess  was  a  supe- 
rior person.  Then  a  painful  thought  came  over  her. 

"Alas!  And  is  it  true,"  she  wondered,  "that  a  simple 
and  loving  heart  is  not  all-sufficient  to  an  artist ;  that  to 
balance  the  weight  of  these  powerful  souls  they  need  a  union 
with  feminine  souls  of  a  strength  equal  to  their  own  ?  If 
I  had  been  brought  up  like  this  siren,  our  weapons  at  least 
might  have  been  equal  in  the  hour  of  struggle." 

"But  I  am  not  at  home!"  The  sharp,  harsh  words, 
though  spoken  in  an  undertone  in  the  adjoining  boudoir, 
were  heard  by  Augustine,  and  her  heart  beat  violently. 

"The  lady  is  in  there,"  replied  the  maid. 

"You  are  an  idiot!  Show  her  in,"  replied  the  duchess, 
whose  voice  was  sweeter,  and  had  assumed  the  dulcet  tones 
of  politeness.  She  evidently  now  meant  to  be  heard. 

Augustine  shyly  entered  the  room.  At  the  end  of  the 
dainty  boudoir  she  saw  the  duchess  lounging  luxuriously  on 
an  ottoman  covered  with  brown  velvet  and  placed  in  the 
centre  of  a  sort  of  apse  outlined  by  soft  folds  of  white  lawn 
over  a  yellow  lining.  Ornaments  of  gilt  bronze,  arranged 
with  exquisite  taste,  enhanced  this  sort  of  dais,  under  which 
the  duchess  reclined  like  a  Greek  statue.  The  dark  hue  of 
the  velvet  gave  relief  to  every  fascinating  charm.  A  subdued 


282  SSGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND  RACKET. 

light,  friendly  to  her  beauty,  fell  like  a  reflection  rather  .han 
a  direct  illumination.  A  few  rare  flowers  raised  their  pel- 
fumed  heads  from  costly  Sevres  vases.  At  the  moment  when 
this  picture  was  presented  to  Augustine's  astonished  eyes,  she 
was  approaching  so  noiselessly  that  she  caught  a  glance  from 
those  of  the  enchantress.  This  look  seemed  to  say  to  some 
one  whom  Augustine  did  not  at  first  perceive,  "Stay;  you 
will  see  a  pretty  woman,  and  make  her  visit  less  of  a  bore." 

On  seeing  Augustine,  the  duchess  rose  and  made  her  sit 
down  by  her. 

"  And  to  what  do  I  owe  the  pleasure  of  this  visit,  madame  ?  " 
she  said  with  a  most  gracious  smile. 

"Why  all  this  falseness?"  thought  Augustine,  replying 
only  with  a  bow. 

Her  silence  was  compulsory.  The  young  woman  saw  before 
her  a  superfluous  witness  of  the  scene.  This  personage  was, 
of  all  the  colonels  in  the  army,  the  youngest,  the  most  fash- 
ionable, and  the  finest  man.  His  face,  full  of  life  and  youth, 
but  already  expressive,  was  further  enhanced  by  a  small 
mustache  twirled  up  into  points,  and  as  black  as  jet,  by  a  full 
imperial,  by  whiskers  carefully  combed,  and  a  forest  of  black 
hair  in  some  disorder.  He  was  whisking  a  riding-whip  with 
an  air  of  ease  and  freedom  which  suited  his  self-satisfied  ex- 
pression and  the  elegance  of  his  dress ;  the  ribbons  attached 
to  his  button-hole  were  carelessly  tied,  and  he  seemed  to  pride 
himself  much  more  on  his  smart  appearance  than  on  his 
courage.  Augustine  looked  at  the  Duchesse  de  Carigliano, 
and  indicated  the  colonel  by  a  sidelong  glance.  All  its  mute 
appeal  was  understood. 

"  Good-by  then,  Monsieur  d'Aiglemont,  we  shall  meet  in 
the  Bois  de  Boulogne." 

These  words  were  spoken  by  the  siren  as  though  they  were 
the  result  of  an  agreement  made  before  Augustine's  arrival, 
and  she  winged  them  with  a  threatening  look  that  the  officer 
deserved,  perhaps,  for  the  admiration  he  showed  in  gazing 


SIGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND  RACKET.  283 

at  the  modest  flower,  which  contrasted  so  well  with  the 
haughty  duchess.  The  young  fop  bowed  in  silence,  turned 
on  the  heels  of  his  boots,  and  gracefully  quitted  the  boudoir. 
At  this  instant,  Augustine,  watching  her  rival,  whose  eyes 
seemed  to  follow  the  brilliant  officer,  detected  in  that  glance 
a  sentiment  of  which  the  transient  expression  is  known  to 
every  woman.  She  perceived  with  the  deepest  anguish  that 
her  visit  would  be  useless;  this  lady,  full  of  artifice,  was  too 
greedy  of  homage  not  to  have  a  ruthless  heart. 

"  Madame,"  said  Augustine  in  a  broken  voice,  "  the  step  I 
am  about  to  take  will  seem  to  you  very  strange ;  but  there  is 
a  madness  of  despair  which  ought  to  excuse  anything.  I 
understand  only  too  well  why  Theodore  prefers  your  house  to 
any  other,  and  why  your  mind  has  so  much  power  over  his. 
Alas !  I  have  only  to  look  into  myself  to  find  more  than 
ample  reasons.  But  I  am  devoted  to  my  husband,  madame. 
Two  years  of  tears  have  not  effaced  his  image  from  my  heart, 
though  I  have  lost  his.  In  my  folly  I  dared  to  dream  of  a 
contest  with  you ;  and  I  have  come  to  you  to  ask  you  by  what 
means  I  may  triumph  over  yourself.  Oh,  madame,"  cried 
the  young  wife,  ardently  seizing  the  hand  which  her  rival 
allowed  her  to  hold,  "  I  will  never  pray  to  God  for  my  own 
happiness  with  so  much  fervor  as  I  will  beseech  Him  for  yours, 
if  you  will  help  me  to  win  back  Sommervieux's  regard — I  will 
not  say  his  love.  I  have  no  hope  but  in  you.  Ah  !  tell  me 
how  you  could  please  him,  and  make  him  forget  the  first 

days "     At  these  words  Augustine  broke  down,  suffocated 

with  sobs  she  could  not  suppress.  Ashamed  of  her  weakness, 
she  hid  her  face  in  her  handkerchief,  which  she  bathed  with 
tears.  "  What  a  child  you  are,  my  dear  little  beauty  !  "  said 
the  duchess,  carried  away  by  the  novelty  of  such  a  scene,  and 
touched,  in  spite  of  herself,  at  receiving  such  homage  from 
the  most  perfect  virtue  perhaps  in  Paris.  She  took  the  young 
wife's  handkerchief,  and  herself  wiped  the  tears  from  her  eyes, 
soothing  her  by  a  few  monosyllables  murmured  with  gracious 


284  SIGN"  OF  THE   CAT  AND   RACKET. 

compassion.  After  a  moment's  silence  the  duchess,  grasping 
poor  Augustine's  hands  in  both  her  own — hands  that  had  a 
rare  character  of  dignity  and  powerful  beauty — said  in  a  gentle 
and  friendly  voice  :  "  My  first  warning  is  to  advise  you  not  to 
weep  so  bitterly ;  tears  are  disfiguring.  We  must  learn  to 
deal  firmly  with  the  sorrows  that  make  us  ill,  for  love  does 
not  linger  long  by  a  sickbed.  Melancholy,  at  first,  no  doubt, 
lends  a  certain  attractive  grace,  but  it  ends  by  dragging  the 
features  and  blighting  the  loveliest  face.  And,  beside,  our 
tyrants  are  so  vain  as  to  insist  that  their  slaves  should  be 
always  cheerful." 

"  But,  madame,  it  is  not  in  my  power  not  to  feel.  How  is 
it  possible,  without  suffering  a  thousand  deaths,  to  see  the  face 
which  once  beamed  with  love  and  gladness  turn  chill,  color- 
less, and  indifferent  ?  I  cannot  control  my  heart !  " 

"  So  much  the  worse,  sweet  child.  But  I  fancy  I  know  all 
your  story.  In  the  first  place,  if  your  husband  is  unfaithful 
to  you,  understand  clearly  that  I  am  not  his  accomplice.  If 
I  was  anxious  to  have  him  in  my  drawing-room,  it  was,  I  own, 
out  of  vanity;  he  was  famous,  and  he  went  nowhere.  I  like 
you  too  much  already  to  tell  you  all  the  mad  things  he  has 
done  for  my  sake.  I  will  only  reveal  one,  because  it  may 
perhaps  help  us  to  bring  him  back  to  you,  and  to  punish  him 
for  the  audacity  of  his  behavior  to  me.  He  will  end  by  com- 
promising me.  I  know  the  world  too  well,  my  dear,  to 
abandon  myself  to  the  discretion  of  a  too  superior  man.  You 
should  know  that  one  may  allow  them  to  court  one,  but  marry 
them — that  is  a  mistake  !  We  women  ought  to  admire  men 
of  genius,  and  delight  in  them  as  a  spectacle,  but  as  to  living 
with  them?  Never.  No,  no.  It  is  like  wanting  to  find 
pleasure  in  inspecting  the  machinery  of  the  opera  instead  of 
sitting  in  a  box  to  enjoy  its  brilliant  illusions.  But  this  mis- 
fortune has  fallen  on  you,  my  poor  child,  has  it  not  ?  Well, 
then,  you  must  try  to  arm  yourself  against  tyranny." 

"  Ah,  madame,  before  coming  in  here,  only  seeing  you  as 


SIGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND  RACKET.  285 

I  came  in,  I  already  detected  some  arts  of  which  I  had  no 
suspicion." 

"Well,  come  and  see  me  sometimes,  and  it  will  not  be  long 
before  you  have  mastered  the  knowledge  of  these  trifles,  im- 
portant, too,  in  their  way.  Outward  things  are,  to  fools, 'half 
of  life ;  and  in  that  matter  more  than  one  clever  man  is  a 
fool,  in  spite  of  all  his  talent.  But  I  dare  wager  you  never 
could  refuse  your  Theodore  anything  !  " 

"  How  refuse  anything,  madame,  if  one  loves  a  man?" 

"  Poor  innocent,  I  could  adore  you  for  your  simplicity. 
You  should  know  that  the  more  we  love  the  less  we  should 
allow  a  man,  above  all,  a  husband,  to  see  the  whole  extent  of 
our  passion.  The  one  who  loves  most  is  tyrannized  over, 
and,  which  is  worse,  is  sooner  or  later  neglected.  The  one 
who  wishes  to  rule  should " 

"What,  madame,  must  I  then  dissimulate,  calculate,  be- 
come false,  form  an  artificial  character,  and  live  in  it  ?  How 
is  it  possible  to  live  in  such  a  way?  Can  you "  she  hesi- 
tated ;  the  duchess  smiled. 

"  My  dear  child,"  the  great  lady  went  on  in  a  serious  tone, 
"  conjugal  happiness  has  in  all  times  been  a  speculation,  a 
business  demanding  particular  attention.  If  you  persist  in 
talking  passion  while  I  am  talking  marriage,  we  shall  soon 
cease  to  understand  each  other.  Listen  to  me,"  she  went  on, 
assuming  a  confidential  tone.  "  I  have  been  in  the  way  of 
seeing  some  of  the  superior  men  of  our  day.  Those  who  have 
married  have  for  the  most  part  chosen  quite  insignificant 
wives.  Well,  those  wives  governed  them,  as  the  Emperor 
governs  us ;  and  if  they  were  not  loved,  they  were  at  least 
respected.  I  like  secrets — especially  those  which  concern 
women — well  enough  to  have  amused  myself  by  seeking  the 
clue  to  the  riddle.  Well,  my  sweet  child,  those  worthy 
women  had  the  gift  of  analyzing  their  husbands'  nature ; 
instead  of  taking  fright,  like  you,  at  their  superiority,  they 
very  acutely  noted  the  qualities  they  lacked,  and  either  by 


286  SIGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND   RACKET. 

possessing  those  qualities,  or  by  feigning  to  possess  them, 
they  found  means  of  making  such  a  handsome  display  of  them 
in  their  husbands'  eyes  that  in  the  end  they  impressed  them. 
Also,  I  must  tell  you,  all  these  souls  which  appear  so  lofty 
have  just  a  speck  of  madness  in  them,  which  we  ought  to 
know  how  to  take  advantage  of.  By  firmly  resolving  to  have 
the  upper  hand  and  never  deviating  from  that  aim,  by  bring- 
ing all  our  actions  to  bear  on  it,  all  our  ideas,  our  cajolery, 
we  subjugate  these  eminently  capricious  natures,  which,  by  the 
very  mutability  of  their  thoughts,  lend  us  the  means  of  influ- 
encing them." 

"  Good  heavens  !  "  cried  the  young  wife  in  dismay.  "And 
this  is  life.  It  is  a  warfare " 

"  In  which  we  must  always  threaten/'  said  the  duchess, 
laughing.  "Our  power  is  wholly  factitious.  And  we  must 
never  allow  a  man  to  despise  us  ;  it  is  impossible  to  recover 
from  such  a  descent  but  by  odious  manoeuvring.  Come,"  she 
added,  "  I  will  give  you  a  means  of  bringing  your  husband  to 
his  senses." 

She  rose  with  a  smile  to  guide  the  young  and  guileless  ap- 
prentice to  conjugal  arts  through  the  labyrinth  of  her  palace. 
They  came  to  a  back  staircase,  which  led  up  to  the  reception- 
rooms.  As  Madame  de  Carigliano  pressed  the  secret  spring- 
lock  of  the  door  she  stopped,  looking  at  Augustine  with  an 
inimitable  gleam  of  shrewdness  and  grace.  "The  Due  de 
Carigliano  adores  me,"  said  she.  "Well,  he  dare  not  enter 
by  this  door  without  my  leave.  And  he  is  a  man  in  the  habit 
of  commanding  thousands  of  soldiers.  He  knows  how  to  face 
a  battery,  but  before  me — he  is  afraid  !  " 

Augustine  sighed.  They  entered  a  sumptuous  gallery,  where 
the  painter's  wife  was  led  by  the  duchess  up  to  the  portrait 
painted  by  Theodore  of  Mademoiselle  Guillaume.  On  seeing 
it,  Augustine  uttered  a  cry. 

"  I  knew  it  was  no  longer  in  my  house,"  she  said,  "  but— • 
here! " 


SIGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND  RACKET.  287 

"  My  dear  child,  I  asked  for  it  merely  to  see  to  what  pitch 
of  idiocy  a  man  of  genius  may  attain.  Sooner  or  later  I 
should  have  returned  it  to  you,  for  I  never  expected  the  plea- 
sure of  seeing  the  original  here  face  to  face  with  the  copy. 
While  we  finish  our  conversation  I  will  have  it  carried  down 
to  your  carriage.  And  if,  armed  with  such  a  talisman,  you 
are  not  your  husband's  mistress  for  a  hundred  years,  you  are 
not  a  woman,  and  you  deserve  your  fate." 

Augustine  kissed  the  duchess'  hand,  and  the  lady  clasped 
her  to  her  heart,  with  all  the  more  tenderness  because  she 
would  forget  her  by  the  morrow.  This  scene  might,  perhaps, 
have  destroyed  forever  the  candor  and  purity  of  a  less  virtuous 
woman  than  Augustine,  for  the  astute  politics  of  the  higher 
social  spheres  were  no  more  consonant  to  Augustine  than  the 
narrow  reasoning  of  Joseph  Lebas,  or  Madame  Guillaume's 
vapid  morality.  Strange  are  the  results  of  the  false  positions 
into  which  we  may  be  brought  by  the  slightest  mistake  in  the 
conduct  of  life  !  Augustine  was  like  an  Alpine  cowherd  sur- 
prised by  an  avalanche ;  if  he  hesitates,  if  he  listens  to  the 
shouts  of  his  comrades,  he  is  almost  certainly  lost.  In  such  a 
crisis  the  heart  steels  itself  or  breaks. 

Madame  de  Sommervieux  returned  home  a  prey  to  such 
agitation  as  it  is  difficult  to  describe.  Her  conversation  with 
the  Duchesse  de  Carigliano  had  roused  in  her  mind  a  crowd 
of  contradictory  thoughts.  Like  the  sheep  in  the  fable,  full 
of  courage  in  the  wolfs  absence,  she  preached  to  herself,  and 
laid  down  admirable  plans  of  conduct ;  she  devised  a  thousand 
coquettish  stratagems  ;  she  even  talked  to  her  husband,  finding, 
away  from  him,  all  the  springs  of  true  eloquence  which  never 
desert  a  woman  ;  then,  as  she  pictured  to  herself  Theodore's 
clear  and  steadfast  gaze,  she  began  to  quake.  When  she  asked 
whether  monsieur  were  at  home  her  voice  shook.  On  learning 
that  he  would  not  be  in  to  dinner,  she  felt  an  unaccountable 
thrill  of  joy.  Like  a  criminal  who  has  appealed  against  sen- 
tence of  death,  a  respite,  however  short,  seemed  tp  her  a  life- 


288  SIGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND  RACKET. 

time.  She  placed  the  portrait  in  her  room,  and  waited  for 
her  husband  in  all  the  agonies  of  hope.  That  this  venture 
must  decide  her  future  life,  she  felt  too  keenly  not  to  shiver 
at  every  sound,  even  the  low  ticking  of  the  clock,  which 
seemed  to  aggravate  her  terrors  by  doling  them  out  to  her. 
She  tried  to  cheat  time  by  various  devices.  The  idea  struck 
her  of  dressing  in  a  way  which  would  make  her  exactly  like 
the  portrait.  Then,  knowing  her  husband's  restless  temper, 
she  had  her  room  lighted  up  with  unusual  brightness,  feeling 
sure  that  when  he  came  in  curiosity  would  bring  him  there  at 
once.  Midnight  had  struck  when,  at  the  call  of  the  groom, 
the  street  gate  was  opened,  and  the  artist's  carriage  rumbled 
in  over  the  stones  of  the  silent  courtyard. 

"What  is  the  meaning  of  this  illumination?  "  asked  Theo- 
dore in  glad  tones  as  he  came  into  her  room. 

Augustine  skillfully  seized  the  auspicious  moment ;  she  threw 
herself  into  her  husband's  arms,  and  pointed  to  the  portrait. 
The  artist  stood  rigid  as  a  rock,  and  his  eyes  turned  alter- 
nately on  Augustine,  on  the  accusing  dress.  The  frightened 
wife,  half-dead,  as  she  watched  her  husband's  changeful  brow 
— that  terrible  brow — saw  the  expressive  furrows  gathering 
like  clouds ;  then  she  felt  her  blood  curdling  in  her  veins 
when,  with  a  glaring  look  and  in  a  deep,  hollow  voice,  he 
began  to  question  her — 

"Where  did  you  find  that  picture?" 

"The  Duchesse  de  Carigliano  returned  it  to  me,"  replied 
Augustine. 

"  You  asked  her  for  it  ?  " 

"  I  did  not  know  that  she  had  it." 

The  gentleness,  or  rather  the  exquisite  sweetness  of  this 
angel's  voice,  might  have  touched  a  cannibal,  but  not  an  artist 
in  the  clutches  of  wounded  vanity. 

"  It  is  worthy  of  her  !  "  exclaimed  the  painter  in  a  voice  of 
thunder.  "I  will  be  revenged  !  "  he  cried,  striding  up  and 
down  the  room.  "  She  shall  die  of  shame;  I  will  paint  her ! 


SIGN  OF  THE    CAT  AND  RACKET.  289 

Yes,  I  will  paint  her  as  Messalina  stealing  out  at  night  from 
the  palace  of  Claudius." 

"Theodore  !  "  said  a  faint  voice. 

"  I  will  kill  her  !" 

"My  dear " 

"  She  is  in  love  with  that  little  cavalry  colonel,  because  he 
rides  well " 

"  Theodore  ! 

"  Let  me  be  !  "  said  the  painter  in  a  tone  almost  like  a  roar. 

It  would  be  odious  to  describe  the  whole  scene.  In  the  end 
the  frenzy  of  passion  prompted  the  artist  to  acts  and  words 
which  any  woman  not  so  young  as  Augustine  would  have 
ascribed  to  madness. 

At  eight  o'clock  next  morning  Madame  Guillaume,  surpris- 
ing her  daughter,  found  her  pale,  with  red  eyes,  her  hair  in 
disorder,  holding  a  handkerchief  soaked  with  tears,  while  she 
gazed  at  the  floor  strewn  with  the  torn  fragments  of  a  dress 
and  the  broken  pieces  of  a  large  gilt  picture-frame.  Augus- 
tine, almost  senseless  with  grief,  pointed  to  the  wreck  with  a 
gesture  of  deep  despair. 

"  I  don't  know  that  the  loss  is  very  great !  "  cried  the  old 
mistress  of  the  Cat  and  Racket.  "  It  was  like  you,  no  doubt; 
but  I  am  told  that  there  is  a  man  on  the  boulevard  who  paints 
lovely  portraits  for  fifty  crowns." 

"Oh,  mother!  " 

"Poor  child,  you  are  quite  right,"  replied  Madame  Guil- 
laume, who  misinterpreted  the  expression  of  her  daughter's 
glance  at  her.  "True,  my  child,  no  one  ever  can  love  you 
as  fondly  as  a  mother.  My  darling,  I  guess  it  all ;  but  con- 
fide your  sorrows  to  me,  and  I  will  comfort  you.  Did  I  not 
tell  you  long  ago  that  the  man  was  mad  !  Your  maid  has  told 
me  pretty  stories.  Why,  he  must  be  a  perfect  monster !  " 

Augustine  laid  a  finger  on  her  white  lips,  as  if  to  implore  a 
moment's  silence.     During  this  dreadful  night  misery  had  led 
her  to  that  patient  resignation  which  in  mothers  and  loving 
19 


290  SIGN  OF  THE   CAT  AND  RACKET. 

wives  transcends  in  its  effects  all  human  energy,  and  perhaps 
reveals  in  the  heart  of  women  the  existence  of  certain  chords 
which  God  has  withheld  from  men. 

An  inscription  engraved  on  a  broken  column  in  the  cem- 
etery at  Montmartre  states  that  Madame  de  Sommervieux  died 
at  the  age  of  twenty-seven.  In  the  simple  words  of  this  epi- 
taph one  of  the  timid  creature's  friends  can  read  the  last  scene 
of  a  tragedy.  Every  year,  on  the  second  of  November,  All- 
Souls'  Day,  the  solemn  day  of  the  dead,  he  never  passes  this 
monument  to  youth  without  wondering  whether  it  does  not 
need  a  stronger  woman  than  Augustine  to  endure  the  violent 
embrace  of  genius? 

"  The  humble  and  modest  flowers  that  bloom  in  the  valley," 
he  reflects,  "  perish,  perhaps,  when  they  are  transplanted  too 
near  the  skies,  to  the  region  where  storms  gather  and  the  sun 
is  scorching." 


THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN 

(La  Maison  Nucingeri). 

Translated   by    ELLEN   MARRIAGE. 

To  Madame  Zulma  Carraud. 

To  whom,  madame,  but  to  you  should  I  inscribe 
this  work  ;  to  you  whose  lofty  and  candid  intellect  is 
a  treasury  to  your  friends  ;  to  you  that  are  to  me  not 
only  a  whole  public,  but  the  most  indulgent  of  sisters 
as  well?  Will  you  deign  to  accept  a  token  of  the 
friendship  of  which  I  am  proud  ?  You,  and  some  few 
souls  as  noble,  will  grasp  the  whole  of  the  thought 
underlying  The  Firm  of  Nucingen,  appended  to  Cesar 
Birotteau.  Is  there  not  a  whole  social  lesson  in  the 
contrast  between  the  two  stories  f 

DE  BALZAC. 

You  know  how  slight  the  partitions  are  between  the  private 
rooms  of  fashionable  restaurants  in  Paris  ;  Very's  largest  room, 
for  instance,  is  cut  in  two  by  a  removable  screen.  This  Scene 
is  not  laid  at  Very's,  but  in  snug  quarters,  which  for  reasons 
of  my  own  I  forbear  to  specify.  We  were  two,  so  I  will  say, 
like  Henri  Monnier's  Prudhomme,  "I  should  not  like  to 
compromise  her  /" 

We  had  remarked  the  want  of  solidity  in  the  wall-structure, 
so  we  talked  with  lowered  voices  as  we  sat  together  in  the 
little  private  room,  lingering  over  the  dainty  dishes  of  a  dinner 
exquisite  in  more  senses  than  one.  We  had  come  as  far  as 
the  roast,  however,  and  still  we  had  no  neighbors ;  no  sound 
came  from  the  next  room  save  the  crackling  of  the  fire.  But 
when  the  clock  struck  eight,  we  heard  voices  and  noisy  foot- 
steps ;  the  waiters  brought  candles.  Evidently  there  was  a 

(291) 


292  THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN. 

party  assembled  in  the  next  room,  and  at  the  first  words  I 
knew  at  once  with  whom  we  had  to  do — four  bold  cormorants 
as  ever  sprang  from  the  foam  on  the  crests  of  the  ever-rising 
waves  of  this  present  generation — four  pleasant  young  fellows 
whose  existence  was  problematical,  since  they  were  not  known 
to  possess  either  stock  or  landed  estates,  yet  they  lived,  and 
lived  well.  These  ingenious  condottieri  (mercenary  soldiers) 
of  a  modern  industrialism,  that  has  come  to  be  the  most  ruth- 
less of  all  warfares,  leave  anxieties  to  their  creditors  and  keep 
the  pleasures  for  themselves.  They  are  careful  for  nothing, 
save  dress.  Still,  with  courage  of  the  Jean  Bart  order,  that 
will  smoke  cigars  on  a  barrel  of  powder  (perhaps  by  way  of 
keeping  up  their  character),  with  a  quizzing  humor  that  out- 
does the  minor  newspapers,  sparing  no  one,  not  even  them- 
selves ;  clear-sighted,  wary,  keen  after  business,  grasping  yet 
open-handed,  envious  yet  self-complacent,  profound  politi- 
cians by  fits  and  starts,  analyzing  everything,  guessing  every- 
thing— not  one  of  these  in  question  had  as  yet  contrived  to 
make  his  way  in  the  world  which  they  chose  for  their  scene 
of  operations.  Only  one  of  the  four,  indeed,  had  succeeded 
in  coming  as  far  as  the  foot  of  the  ladder. 

To  have  money  is  nothing ;  the  self-made  man  only  finds 
out  all  that  he  lacks  after  six  months  of  flatteries.  Andoche 
Finot,  the  self-made  man  in  question,  stiff,  taciturn,  cold,  and 
dull-witted,  possessed  the  sort  of  spirit  which  will  not  shrink 
from  groveling  before  any  creature  that  may  be  of  use  to  him, 
and  the  cunning  to  be  insolent  when  he  needs  a  man  no 
longer.  Like  one  of  the  grotesque  figures  in  the  ballet  in 
"  Gustave,"  he  was  a  marquis  behind,  a  boor  in  front.  And 
this  high-priest  of  commerce  had  a  following. 

Emile  Blondet,  journalist,  with  abundance  of  intellectual 
power,  reckless,  brilliant,  and  indolent,  could  do  anything 
that  he  chose,  yet  he  submitted  to  be  exploited  with  his  eyes 
open.  Treacherous  or  kind  upon  impulse,  a  man  to  love,  but 
not  to  respect ;  quick-witted  as  a  soubrette,  unable  to  refuse 


THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN.  293 

his  pen  to  any  one  that  asked,  or  his  heart  to  the  first  that 
would  borrow  it,  Emile  was  the  most  fascinating  of  those 
light-of-loves  of  whom  a  fantastic  and  brilliant  modern  wit 
declared  that  "  he  liked  them  better  in  satin  slippers  than  in 
boots." 

The  third  in  the  party,  Couture  by  name,  lived  by  specula- 
tion, grafting  one  affair  upon  another  to  make  the  gains  pay 
for  the  losses.  He  was  always  between  wind  and  water,  keep- 
ing himself  afloat  by  his  bold,  sudden  strokes  and  the  nervous 
energy  of  his  play.  Hither  and  thither  he  would  swim  over 
the  vast  sea  of  interests  in  Paris,  in  quest  of  some  little  isle 
that  should  be  so  far  a  debatable  land  that  he  might  abide 
upon  it.  Clearly  Couture  was  not  in  his  proper  place. 

As  for  the  fourth  and  most  malicious  personage,  his  name 
will  be  enough — it  was  Bixiou  !  Not  (alas !)  the  Bixiou  of 
1825,  but  the  Bixiou  of  1836,  a  misanthropic  buffoon,  ac- 
knowledged supreme,  by  reason  of  his  energetic  and  caustic 
wit ;  a  very  fiend  let  loose  now  that  he  saw  how  he  had  squan- 
dered his  intellect  in  pure  waste;  a  Bixiou  vexed  by  the 
thought  that  he  had  not  come  by  his  share  of  the  wreckage  in 
the  last  Revolution ;  a  Bixiou  with  a  kick  for  every  one,  like 
Pierrot  at  the  Funambules.  Bixiou  had  the  whole  history  of 
his  own  times  at  his  finger-ends,  more  particularly  its  scanda- 
lous chronicle,  embellished  by  added  waggeries  of  his  own. 
He  sprang  like  a  clown  upon  everybody's  back,  only  to  do  his 
utmost  to  leave  the  executioner's  brand  upon  every  pair  of 
shoulders. 

The  first  cravings  of  gluttony  satisfied,  our  neighbors  reached 
the  stage  at  which  we  also  had  arrived,  to  wit,  the  dessert ; 
and,  as  we  made  no  sign,  they  believed  that  they  were  alone. 
Thanks  to  the  champague,  the  talk  grew  confidential  as  they 
dallied  with  the  dessert  amid  the  cigar  smoke.  Yet  through 
it  all  you  felt  the  influence  of  the  icy  shade  that  leaves  the 
most  spontaneous  feeling  frost-bound  and  stiff,  that  checks 
the  most  generous  inspirations,  and  gives  a  sharp  ring  to  the 


294  THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN. 

laughter.  Their  table-talk  was  full  of  the  bitter  irony  which 
turns  a  jest  into  a  sneer ;  it  told  of  the  exhaustion  of  souls 
given  over  to  themselves ;  of  lives  with  no  end  in  view  but 
the  satisfaction  of  self — of  egoism  induced  by  these  times  of 
peace  in  which  we  live.  I  can  think  of  nothing  like  it  save  a 
pamphlet  against  mankind  at  large  which  Diderot  was  afraid 
to  publish,  a  book  that  bares  man's  breast  simply  to  expose 
the  plague-sores  upon  it.  We  listened  to  just  such  a  pamphlet 
as  "  Rameau's  Nephew,"  spoken  aloud  in  all  good  faith,  in 
the  course  of  after-dinner  talk,  in  which  nothing,  not  even  the 
point  which  the  speaker  wished  to  carry,  was  sacred  from 
epigram ;  nothing  taken  for  granted,  nothing  built  up  except 
upon  ruins,  nothing  reverenced  save  the  skeptic's  adopted 
article  of  belief — the  omnipotence,  omniscience,  and  universal 
applicability  of  money. 

After  some  target  practice  at  the  outer  circle  of  their  ac- 
quaintances, they  turned  their  ill-natured  shafts  at  their  inti- 
mate friends.  With  a  sign  I  explained  my  wish  to  stay  and 
listen  as  soon  as  Bixiou  took  up  his  parable,  as  will  shortly  be 
seen.  And  so  we  listened  to  one  of  those  terrific  improvisa- 
tions which  won  that  artist  such  a  name  among  a  certain  set 
of  seared  and  jaded  spirits  ;  and  often  interrupted  and  resumed 
though  it  was,  memory  serves  me  as  a  reporter  of  it.  The 
opinions  expressed  and  the  form  of  expression  lie  alike  outside 
the  conditions  of  literature.  It  was,  more  properly  speaking, 
a  medley  of  sinister  revelations  that  paint  our  age,  to  which 
indeed  no  other  kind  of  story  should  be  told  ;  and,  beside.  I 
throw  all  the  responsibility  upon  the  principal  speaker.  The 
pantomime  and  the  gestures  that  accompanied  Bixiou's  changes 
of  voice,  as  he  acted  the  parts  of  the  various  persons,  must 
have  been  perfect,  judging  by  the  applause  and  admiring 
comments  that  broke  from  his  audience  of  three. 

"Then  did  Rastignac  refuse?"  asked  Blondet,  apparently 
addressing  Finot. 

"Point-blank." 


THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN.  295 

"  But  did  you  threaten  him  with  the  newspapers?  "  asked 
Bixiou. 

"He  began  to  laugh,"  returned  Finot. 

"Rastignac  is  the  late  lamented  de  Marsay's  direct  heir; 
he  will  make  his  way  politically  as  well  as  socially,"  com- 
mented Blondet. 

"  But  how  did  he  make  his  money  ?  "  asked  Couture.  "  In 
1819  both  he  and  the  illustrious  Bianchon  lived  in  a  shabby 
boarding-house  in  the  Latin  quarter;*  his  people  ate  roast 
cockchafers  and  drank  their  own  wine  so  as  to  send  him  a 
hundred  francs  every  month.  His  father's  property  was  not 
worth  a  thousand  crowns  ;  he  had  two  sisters  and  a  brother  on 
his  hands,  and  now " 

"  Now  he  has  an  income  of  forty  thousand  livres,"  con- 
tinued Finot ;  "  his  sisters  had  a  handsome  fortune  apiece  and 
married  into  noble  families;  he  leaves  his  mother  a  life-interest 
in  the  property " 

"  Even  in  1827  I  have  known  him  without  a  penny,"  said 
Blondet. 

"  Oh  !  in  1827,"  said  Bixiou. 

"  Well,"  resumed  Finot,  "  yet  to-day,  as  we  see,  he  is  in  a 
fair  way  to  be  a  minister,  a  peer  of  France — anything  that  he 
likes.  He  broke  decently  with  Delphine  three  years  ago ;  he 
will  not  marry  except  on  good  grounds  ;  and  he  may  marry  a 
girl  of  noble  family.  The  chap  had  the  sense  to  take  up  with 
a  wealthy  woman." 

"My  friends,  give  him  the  benefit  of  extenuating  circum- 
stances," urged  Blondet.  "  When  he  escaped  the  clutches  of 
want,  he  dropped  into  the  claws  of  a  very  clever  man." 

"You  know  what  Nucingen  is,"  said  Bixiou.  "In  the 
early  days,  Delphine  and  Rastignac  thought  him  'good- 
natured  ; '  he  seemed  to  regard  a  wife  as  a  plaything,  an  orna- 
ment in  his  house.  And  that  very  fact  showed  me  that  the 
man  was  square  at  the  base  as  well  as  in  height,"  added  Bixiou. 
*  See  "  Father  Goriot." 


296  THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN. 

"  Nucingen  makes  no  bones  about  admitting  that  his  wife  is 
his  fortune ;  she  is  an  indispensable  chattel,  but  a  wife  takes  a 
secondary  place  in  the  high-pressure  life  of  a  political  leader 
and  great  capitalist.  He  once  said  in  my  hearing  that  Bona- 
parte had  blundered  like  a  bourgeois  in  his  early  relations  with 
Josephine ;  and  that  after  he  had  had  the  spirit  to  use  her  as 
a  stepping-stone,  he  had  made  himself  ridiculous  by  trying  to 
make  a  companion  of  her." 

"Any  man  of  unusual  powers  is  bound  to  take  Oriental 
views  of  women,"  said  Blondet. 

"  The  baron  blended  the  opinions  of  East  and  West  in  a 
charming  Parisian  creed  ;  he  abhorred  de  Marsay  ;  de  Marsay 
was  unmanageable;  but  with  Rastignac  he  was  much  pleased; 
he  exploited  him,  though  Rastignac  was  not  aware  of  it.  All 
the  burdens  of  married  life  were  put  on  him.  Rastignac  bore 
the  brunt  of  Delphine's  whims ;  he  escorted  her  to  the  Bois  de 
Boulogne  ;  he  went  with  her  to  the  play ;  and  the  little  poli- 
tician and  great  man  of  to-day  spent  a  good  deal  of  his  life  at 
that  time  in  writing  dainty  notes.  Eugene  was  scolded  for 
little  nothings  from  the  first ;  he  was  in  good  spirits  when  Del- 
phine  was  cheerful,  and  drooped  when  she  felt  low ;  he  bore 
the  weight  of  her  confidences  and  her  ailments ;  he  gave  up 
his  time,  the  hours  of  his  precious  youth,  to  fill  the  empty  void 
of  that  fair  Parisian's  idleness.  Delphine  and  he  held  high 
councils  on  the  toilettes  which  went  best  together ;  he  stood 
the  fire  of  bad  temper  and  broadsides  of  pouting  fits,  while  she, 
by  way  of  trimming  the  balance,  was  very  nice  to  the  baron. 
As  for  the  baron,  he  laughed  in  his  sleeve;  but  whenever  he 
saw  that  Rastignac  was  bending  under  the  strain  of  the  burden, 
he  made  '  as  if  he  suspected  something,'  and  reunited  the 
lovers  by  a  common  dread." 

"lean  imagine  that  a  wealthy  wife  would  have  put  Ras- 
tignac in  the  way  of  a  living,  and  an  honorable  living,  but 
where  did  he  pick  up  his  fortune?"  asked  Couture.  "A 
fortune  so  considerable  as  his  at  the  present  day  must  come 


THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN.  297 

from  somewhere ;  and  nobody  ever  accused  him  of  inventing 
a  good  stroke  of  business." 

"  Somebody  left  it  to  him,"  said  Finot. 
"Who?"  asked  Blondet. 

"  Some  fool  that  he  came  across,"  suggested  Couture. 
"He  did  not  steal  the  whole  of  it,  my  little  dears,"  said 
Bixiou. 

"  Let  not  your  terrors  rise  to  fever-heat, 
Our  age  is  lenient  with  those  that  cheat. 

Now,  I  will  tell  you  about  the  beginnings  of  his  fortune. 
In  the  first  place,  honor  to  talent !  Our  friend  is  not  a 
'chap,'  as  Finot  describes  him,  but  a  gentleman  in  the 
English  sense,  who  knows  the  cards  and  knows  the  game ; 
whom,  moreover,  the  gallery  respects.  Rastignac  has  quite 
as  much  intelligence  as  is  needed  at  a  given  moment, 
as  if  a  soldier  should  make  his  courage  payable  at  ninety 
days'  sight,  with  three  witnesses  and  guarantees.  He  may 
seem  captious,  wrong-headed,  inconsequent,  vacillating,  and 
without  any  fixed  opinions  ;  but  let  something  serious  turn 
up,  some  combination  to  scheme  out,  he  will  not  scatter  him- 
self like  Blondet  here,  who  chooses  these  occasions  to  look  at 
things  from  his  neighbor's  point  of  view.  Rastignac  concen- 
trates himself,  pulls  himself  together,  looks  for  the  point  to 
carry  by  storm,  and  goes  full  tilt  for  it.  He  charges  like  a 
Murat,  breaks  squares,  pounds  away  at  shareholders,  pro- 
moters, and  the  whole  crowd,  and  returns,  when  the  breach  is 
made,  to  his  lazy,  careless  life.  Once  more  he  becomes  the 
man  of  the  South,  the  man  of  pleasure,  the  trifling,  idle 
Rastignac.  He  has  earned  the  right  of  lying  in  bed  till  noon 
because  a  crisis  never  finds  him  asleep." 

"  So  far  so  good,  but  just  get  to  his  fortune,"  said  Finot. 

"  Bixiou  will  dash  that  off  at  a  stroke,"  replied  Blondet. 
"  Rastignac's  fortune  was  Delphine  de  Nucingen,  a  remarkable 
woman;  she  combines  boldness  with  foresight." 


298  THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN. 

"Did  she  ever  lend  you  money?"  inquired  Bixiou. 
Everybody  burst  out  laughing. 

"You  are  mistaken  in  her,"  said  Couture,  speaking  to 
Blondet ;  "  her  cleverness  simply  consists  in  making  more  or 
less  piquant  remarks,  in  loving  Rastignac  with  tedious  fidelity, 
and  obeying  him  blindly.  She  is  a  regular  Italian." 

"  Money  apart,"  Andoche  Finot  put  in  sourly. 

"Oh,  come,  come,"  said  Bixiou  coaxingly;  "after  what 
we  have  just  been  saying,  will  you  venture  to  blame  poor 
Rastignac  for  living  at  the  expense  of  the  firm  of  Nucingen, 
for  being  installed  in  furnished  rooms  precisely  as  La  Torpille 
was  once  installed  by  our  friend  des  Lupeaulx?  You  would 
sink  to  the  vulgarity  of  the  Rue  Saint-Denis !  First  of  all, 
'in  the  abstract,' as  Royer-Collard  says,  the  question  may 
abide  the  '  Kritik  of  Pure  Reason  ; '  as  for  the  impure  reason 
that " 

"  There  he  goes  !  "  said  Finot,  turning  to  Blondet. 

"But  there  is  reason  in  what  he  says,"  exclaimed  Blondet. 
"The  problem  is  a  very  old  one;  it  was  the  grand  secret  of 
the  famous  duel  between  La  Chataigneraie  and  Jarnac.  It 
was  cast  up  to  Jarnac  that  he  was  on  good  terms  with  his 
mother-in-law,  who,  loving  him  only  too  well,  equipped  him 
sumptuously.  When  a  thing  is  so  true,  it  ought  not  to  be 
said.  Out  of  devotion  to  Henry  II.,  who  permitted  himself 
this  slander,  La  Chataigneraie  took  it  upon  himself,  and  there 
followed  the  duel  which  enriched  the  French  language  with 
the  expression  coup  de  Jarnac" 

"Oh!  does  it  go  so  far  back?  Then  it  is  noble?"  said 
Finot. 

"  As  proprietor  of  newspapers  and  reviews  of  old  standing, 
you  are  not  bound  to  know  that,"  said  Blondet. 

"There  are  women,"  Bixiou  gravely  resumed,  "and  for 
that  matter,  men  too,  who  can  cut  their  lives  in  two  and  give 
away  but  one-half.  (Remark  how  I  word  my  phrase  for  you 
in  humanitarian  language.)  For  these,  all  material  interests 


THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN.  299 

lie  without  the  range  of  sentiment.  They  give  their  time, 
their  life,  their  honor  to  a  woman,  and  hold  that  between  them- 
selves it  is  not  the  thing  to  meddle  with  bits  of  tissue  paper 
bearing  the  legend,  ' Forgery  is  punishable  with  death.'  And 
equally  they  will  take  nothing  from  a  woman.  Yes,  the 
whole  thing  is  debased  if  fusion  of  interests  follows  on  fusion 
of  souls.  This  is  a  doctrine  much  preached,  and  very  seldom 
practiced." 

"  Oh,  what  rubbish  !  "  cried  Blondet.  "  The  Marechal  de 
Richelieu  understood  something  of  gallantry,  and  he  settled 
an  allowance  of  a  thousand  louis  d'or  on  Madame  de  la 
Popeliniere  after  that  affair  of  the  hiding-place  behind  the 
hearth.  Agnes  Sorel,  in  all  simplicity,  took  her  fortune  to 
Charles  VII.,  and  the  King  accepted  it.  Jacques  Cceur  kept 
the  crown  for  France  ;  he  was  allowed  to  do  it,  and,  woman- 
like, France  was  ungrateful." 

"Gentlemen,"  said  Bixiou,  "a  love  that  does  not  imply  an 
indissoluble  friendship,  to  my  thinking,  is  momentary  liber- 
tinage.  What  sort  of  entire  surrender  is  it  that  keeps  some- 
thing back?  Between  these  two  diametrically  opposed  doc- 
trines, the  one  as  profoundly  immoral  as  the  other,  there  is  no 
possible  compromise.  It  seems  to  me  that  any  shrinking  from 
a  complete  union  is  surely  due  to  a  belief  that  the  union  cannot 
last,  and  if  so,  farewell  to  illusion.  The  passion  that  does  not 
believe  that  it  will  last  forever  is  a  hideous  thing.  (Here  is 
pure  unadulterated  Fenelon  for  you !)  At  the  same  time, 
those  who  know  the  world,  the  observer,  the  man  of  the  world, 
the  wearers  of  irreproachable  gloves  and  ties,  the  men  who  do 
not  blush  to  marry  a  woman  for  her  money,  proclaim  the 
necessity  of  a  complete  separation  of  sentiment  and  interest. 
The  other  sort  are  lunatics  that  love  and  imagine  that  they 
and  the  woman  they  love  are  the  only  two  beings  in  the 
world  ;  for  them  millions  are  dirt ;  the  glove  or  the  camellia 
flower  that  She  wore  is  worth  millions.  If  the  squandered 
filthy  lucre  is  never  to  be  found  again  in  their  possession,  you 


300  THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN. 

find  the  remains  of  floral  relics  hoarded  in  dainty  cedar-wood 
boxes.  They  cannot  distinguish  themselves  one  from  the 
other ;  for  them  there  is  no  '  I '  left.  Thou — that  is  their 
Word  made  flesh.  What  can  you  do  ?  Can  you  stop  the 
course  of  this  '  hidden  disease  of  the  heart  ?  '  There  are  fools 
that  love  without  calculation,  and  wise  men  that  calculate 
while  they  love." 

"To  my  thinking  Bixiou  is  sublime,"  cried  Blondet. 
"What  does  Finot  say  to  it?  " 

"Anywhere  else,"  said  Finot,  drawing  himself  up  in  his 
cravat,  "anywhere  else,  I  should  say,  with  the  'gentlemen;' 
but  here,  I  think " 

"With  the  scoundrelly  scapegraces  with  whom  you  have 
the  honor  to  associate?"  said  Bixiou. 

"Upon  my  word,  yes." 

"And  you?"  asked  Bixiou,  turning  to  Couture. 

"  Stuff  and  nonsense  !  "  cried  Couture.  "  The  woman  that 
will  not  make  a  stepping-stone  of  her  body,  that  the  man  she 
singles  out  may  reach  his  goal,  is  a  woman  that  has  no  heart 
except  for  her  own  purposes." 

"And  you,  Blondet?" 

"  I  do  not  preach,  I  practice." 

"Very  good,"  rejoined  Bixiou  in  his  most  ironical  tones. 
"  Rastignac  was  not  of  your  way  of  thinking.  To  take  without 
repaying  is  detestable,  and  even  rather  bad  form ;  but  to  take 
that  you  may  render  a  hundredfold,  like  the  Lord,  is  a  chival- 
rous deed.  This  was  Rastignac's  view.  He  felt  profoundly 
humiliated  by  his  community  of  interests  with  Delphine  de 
Nucingen ;  I  can  tell  you  that  he  regretted  it ;  I  have  seen  him 
deploring  his  position  with  tears  in  his  eyes.  Yes,  he  shed 
tears,  he  did,  indeed — after  supper.  Well,  now  to  our  way  of 
thinking " 

"  I  say,  you  are  laughing  at  us,"  said  Finot. 

"  Not  the  least  in  the  world.  We  were  talking  of  Rastignac. 
From  your  point  of  view  his  affliction  would  be  a  sign  of  his 


THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN.  301 

corruption  ;  for  by  that  time  he  was  not  nearly  so  much  in 
love  with  Delphine.  What  would  you  have?  he  felt  the 
prick  in  his  neart,  poor  fellow.  But  he  was  a  man  of  noble 
descent  and  profound  depravity,  whereas  we  are  virtuous 
artists.  So  Rastignac  meant  to  enrich  Delphine ;  he  was  a 
poor  man,  she  a  rich  woman.  Would  you  believe  it?  he  suc- 
ceeded. Rastignac,  who  might  have  fought  at  need,  like 
Jarnac,  went  over  to  the  opinion  of  Henri  II.  on  the  strength 
of  his  great  maxim,  '  There  is  no  such  thing  as  absolute  right ; 
there  are  only  circumstances.'  This  brings  us  to  the  history 
of  his  fortune." 

"  You  might  just  as  well  make  a  start  with  your  story  instead 
of  drawing  us  on  to  traduce  ourselves,"  said  Blondet  with 
urbane  good-humor. 

"Aha!  my  boy,"  returned  Bixiou,  administering  a  little 
tap  to  the  back  of  Blondet's  head,  "  you  are  making  up  for 
lost  time  over  the  champagne  !  " 

"  Oh  !  by  the  sacred  name  of  shareholder,  get  on  with  your 
story  !  "  cried  Couture. 

"  I  was  within  an  ace  of  it,"  retorted  Bixiou,  "  but  you  with 
your  profanity  have  brought  me  to  the  climax." 

"Then,  are  there  shareholders  in  the  tale?"  inquired 
Finot. 

"Yes;  rich  as  rich  can  be— like  yours." 

"It  seems  to  me,"  Finot  began  stiffly,  "that  some  consid- 
eration is  owing  to  a  good  fellow  to  whom  you  look  for  a  bill 
for  five  hundred  francs  upon  occasion " 

"  Waiter  !  "  called  Bixiou. 

"What  do  you  want  with  the  waiter?"  asked  Blondet. 

"  I  want  five  hundred  francs  to  repay  Finot,  so  that  I  can 
tear  up  my  I.  O.  U.  and  set  my  tongue  free." 

"Get  on  with  your  story,"  said  Finot,  making  believe  to 
laugh. 

"  I  take  you  all  to  witness  that  I  am  not  the  property  of  this 
insolent  fellow,  who  fancies  that  my  silence  is  worth  no  more 


302  THE   FIRM   OF  AUCINGEN. 

than  five  hundred  francs.  You  will  never  be  a  minister  if  you 
cannot  gauge  people's  consciences.  There,  my  good  Finot," 
he  added  soothingly,  "  I  will  get  on  with  my  story  without 
personalities,  and  we  shall  be  quits." 

"  Now,"  said  Couture  with  a  smile,  "  he  will  begin  to  prove 
for  our  benefit  that  Nucingen  made  Rastignac's  fortune." 

"You  are  not  so  far  out  as  you  think,"  returned  Bixiou. 
"You  do  not  know  what  Nucingen  is,  financially  speaking." 

"  Do  you  know  so  much  as  a  word  as  to  his  beginnings  ?  " 
asked  Blondet. 

"I  have  only  known  him  in  his  own  house,"  said  Bixiou, 
"  but  we  may  have  seen  each  other  in  the  street  in  the  old 
days." 

"  The  prosperity  of  the  firm  of  Nucingen  is  one  of  the  most 
extraordinary  things  seen  in  our  days,"  began  Blondet.  "  In 
1804  Nucingen's  name  was  scarcely  known.  At  that  time 
bankers  would  have  shuddered  at  the  idea  of  three  hundred 
thousand  francs'  worth  of  his  acceptances  in  the  market.  The 
great  capitalist  felt  his  inferiority.  How  was  he  to  get  known  ? 
He  suspended  payment.  Good  !  Every  market  rang  with  a 
name  hitherto  only  known  in  Strasbourg  and  the  Quartier 
Poissonniere.  He  issued  deposit  certificates  to  his  creditors, 
and  resumed  payment ;  forthwith  people  grew  accustomed  to 
his  paper  all  over  France.  Then  an  unheard-of  thing  hap- 
pened— his  paper  revived,  was  in  demand,  and  rose  in  value. 
Nucingen's  paper  was  much  inquired  for.  The  year  1815 
arrives,  my  banker  calls  in  his  capital,  buys  up  Government 
stock  before  the  battle  of  Waterloo,  suspends  payment  again  in 
the  thick  of  the  crisis,  and  meets  his  engagements  with  shares 
in  the  Wortschin  mines,  which  he  himself  issued  at  twenty  per 
cent,  more  than  he  gave  for  them  !  Yes,  gentlemen  !  He 
took  a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  bottles  of  champagne  of 
Grandet  to  cover  himself  (foreseeing  the  failure  of  the  virtuous 
parent  of  the  present  Comte  d'Aubrion),  and  as  much  Bor- 
deaux wine  of  Duberghe  at  the  same  time.  Those  three  hun- 


THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN.  303 

dred  thousand  bottles  which  he  took  over  (and  took  over  at 
thirty  sous  apiece,  my  dear  boy),  he  supplied  at  the  price  of  six 
francs  per  bottle  to  the  Allies  in  the  Palais  Royal  during  the 
foreign  occupation  between  1817  and  1819.  Nucingen's  name 
and  his  paper  acquired  a  European  celebrity.  The  illustrious 
baron,  so  far  from  being  engulfed  like  others,  rose  the  higher 
for  calamities.  Twice  his  arrangements  had  paid  holders  of 
his  paper  uncommonly  well ;  he  try  to  swindle  them?  Impos- 
sible. He  is  supposed  to  be  as  honest  a  man  as  you  will  find. 
When  he  suspends  payment  a  third  time,  his  paper  will  circu- 
late in  Asia,  Mexico,  and  Australia,  among  the  aborigines. 
No  one  but  Ouvrard  saw  through  this  Alsacian  banker,  the  son 
of  some  Jew  or  other  converted  by  ambition  ;  Ouvrard  said, 
'  When  Nucingen  lets  gold  go,  you  may  be  sure  that  it  is  to 
catch  diamonds.'  " 

"His  crony,  du  Tillet,  is  just  such  another,"  said  Finot. 
"And,  mind  you,  that  of  birth  du  Tillet  has  just  precisely  so 
much  as  is  necessary  to  exist ;  the  chap  had  not  a  farthing  in 
1814,  and  you  see  what  he  is  now;  and  he  has  done  some- 
thing that  none  of  us  has  managed  to  do  (I  am  not  speaking 
of  you,  Couture),  he  has  had  friends  instead  of  enemies.  In 
fact,  he  has  kept  his  past  life  so  quiet,  that  unless  you  rake 
the  sewers  you  are  not  likely  to  find  out  that  he  was  an  assist- 
ant in  a  perfumer's  shop  in  the  Rue  Saint-Honore,  no  further 
back  than  1814."* 

"  Tut,  tut,  tut !  "  said  Bixiou,  "do  not  think  of  comparing 
Nucingen  with  a  little  dabbler  like  du  Tillet,  a  jackal  that  gets 
on  in  life  through  his  sense  of  smell.  He  scents  a  carcase 
by  instinct,  and  comes  in  time  to  get  the  best  bone.  Beside, 
just  look  at  the  two  men.  The  one  has  a  sharp-pointed  face 
like  a  cat,  he  is  thin  and  lanky;  the  other  is  cubical,  fat, 
heavy  as  a  sack,  imperturbable  as  a  diplomatist.  Nucingen 
has  a  thick,  heavy  hand,  and  lynx  eyes  that  never  light  up ; 
his  depths  are  not  in  front,  but  behind;  he  is  inscrutable, 
*  See  "  f^sar  Birotteau." 


304  THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN. 

you  never  see  what  he  is  making  for.  Whereas  du  Tillet's 
cunning,  as  Napoleon  said  of  somebody  (I  have  forgotten  the 
name),  is  like  cotton  spun  too  fine,  it  breaks." 

"  I  do  not  myself  see  that  Nucingen  has  any  advantage  over 
du  Tillet,"  said  Blondet,  "unless  it  is  that  he  has  the  sense 
to  see  that  a  capitalist  ought  not  to  rise  higher  than  a  baron's 
rank,  while  du  Tillet  has  a  mind  to  be  an  Italian  count." 

"  Blondet — one  word,  my  boy,"  put  in  Couture.  "  In  the 
first  place,  Nucingen  dared  to  say  that  honesty  is  simply  a 
question  of  appearances ;  and,  secondly,  to  know  him  well  you 
must  be  in  business  yourself.  With  him  banking  is  but  a 
single  department,  and  a  very  small  one ;  he  holds  Govern- 
ment contracts  for  wines,  wools,  indigoes — anything,  in  short, 
on  which  any  profit  can  be  made.  He  has  an  all-round 
genius.  The  elephant  of  finance  would  contract  to  deliver 
votes  on  a  division,  or  the  Greeks  to  the  Turks.  For  him 
business  means  the  sum-total  of  varieties ;  as  Cousin  would 
say,  the  unity  of  specialties.  Looked  at  in  this  way,  banking 
becomes  a  kind  of  statecraft  in  itself,  requiring  a  powerful 
head ;  and  a  man  thoroughly  tempered  is  drawn  on  to  set 
himself  above  the  laws  of  a  morality  that  cramps  him." 

"Right,  my  son,"  said  Blondet,  "but  we,  and  we  alone, 
can  comprehend  that  this  means  bringing  war  into  the  finan 
cial  world.  A  banker  is  a  conquering  general  making  sacri- 
fices on  a  tremendous  scale  to  gain  ends  that  no  one  perceives ; 
his  soldiers  are  private  people's  interests.  He  has  stratagems 
to  plan  out,  partisans  to  bring  into  the  field,  ambushes  to  set, 
towns  to  take.  Most  men  of  this  stamp  are  so  close  upon  the 
borders  of  politics  that  in  the  end  they  are  drawn  into  public 
life,  and  thereby  lose  their  fortunes.  The  firm  of  Necker,  for 
instance,  was  ruined  in  this  way ;  the  famous  Samuel  Bernard 
was  all  but  ruined.  Some  great  capitalist  in  every  age  makes 
a  colossal  fortune,  and  leaves  behind  him  neither  fortune 
nor  a  family ;  there  was  the  firm  of  Paris  Brothers,  for  in- 
stance, that  helped  to  pull  down  Law;  there  was  Law  himself 


THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN.  305 

(beside  whom  other  promoters  of  companies  are  but  pigmies) ; 
there  was  Bouret  and  Beaujon — none  of  them  left  any  repre- 
sentative. Finance,  like  Time,  devours  its  own  children.  If 
the  banker  is  to  perpetuate  himself,  he  must  found  a  noble 
house,  a  dynasty;  like  the  Fuggers  of  Antwerp,  that  lent 
money  to  Charles  V.  and  were  created  Princes  of  Babenhausen, 
a  family  that  exists  at  this  day — in  the  'Almanach  de  Gotha.' 
The  instinct  of  self-preservation,  working  it  may  be  uncon- 
sciously, leads  the  banker  to  seek  a  title.  Jacques  Cceur  was 
the  founder  of  the  great  noble  house  of  Noirmoutier,  extinct 
in  the  reign  of  Louis  XIII.  What  power  that  man  had  !  He 
was  ruined  for  making  a  legitimate  king;  and  he  died,  prince 
of  an  island  in  the  Archipelago,  where  he  built  a  magnificent 
cathedral." 

"  Oh  !  you  are  giving  us  a  historical  lecture,  we  are  wander- 
ing away  from  the  present ;  the  crown  has  no  right  of  confer- 
ring nobility,  and  barons  and  counts  are  made  with  closed 
doors;  more  is  the  pity  !  "  said  Finot. 

"You  regret  the  times  of  the  savonnette  a  vilain*  when  you 
could  buy  an  office  that  ennobled?"  asked  Bixiou.  "You 
are  right.  Je  reviens  a  nos  moutons  (I  return  to  our  muttons). 
Do  you  know  Beaudenord?  No?  no?  no?  Ah,  well!  See 
how  all  things  pass  away  !  Poor  fellow,  ten  years  ago  he  was 
the  flower  of  dandyism  ;  and  now,  so  thoroughly  absorbed 
that  you  no  more  know  him  than  Finot  just  now  knew  the 
origin  of  the  expression  '  coup  de  Jarnac  ' — I  repeat  that  sim- 
ply for  the  sake  of  illustration,  and  not  to  tease  you,  Finot. 
Well,  it  is  a  fact,  he  belonged  to  the  Faubourg  Saint-Germain. 

"Beaudenord  is  the  first  pigeon  that  I  will  bring  on  the 
scene.  And,  in  the  first  place,  his  name  was  Godefroid  de 
Beaudenord  ;  neither  Finot,  nor  Blondet,  nor  Couture,  nor  I 
are  likely  to  undervalue  such  an  advantage  as  that !  After  a 
ball,  when  a  score  of  pretty  women  stand  behooded  waiting 
for  their  carriages,  with  their  husbands  and  adorers  at  their 

*  Soap-cake  for  the  base-born. 
20 


306  THE   FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN. 

sides,  Beaudenord  could  hear  his  people  called  without  a  pang 
of  mortification.  In  the  second  place,  he  rejoiced  in  the 
full  complement  of  limbs ;  he  was  whole  and  sound,  had 
no  mote  in  his  eyes,  no  false  hair,  no  artificial  calves ;  he 
was  neither  knock-kneed  nor  bandy-legged,  his  dorsal  column 
was  straight,  his  waist  slender,  his  hands  white  and  shapely. 
His  hair  was  black ;  he  was  of  a  complexion  neither  too  pink, 
like  a  grocer's  assistant,  nor  yet  too  brown,  like  a  Calabrese. 
Finally,  and  this  is  an  essential  point,  Beaudenord  was  not  too 
handsome,  like  some  of  our  friends  that  look  rather  too  much 
of  professional  beauties  to  be  anything  else ;  but  no  more  of 
that ;  we  have  said  it,  it  is  shocking  !  Well,  he  was  a  crack 
shot,  and  sat  a  horse  to  admiration  ;  he  had  fought  a  duel  for 
a  trifle,  and  had  not  killed  his  man. 

"  If  you  wish  to  know  in  what  pure,  complete,  and  unadul- 
terated happiness  consists  in  this  nineteenth  century  in  Paris 
— the  happiness,  that  is  to  say,  of  a  young  man  of  twenty-six 
— do  you  realize  that  you  must  enter  into  the  infinitely  small 
details  of  existence?  Beaudenord's  bootmaker  had  precisely 
hit  off  his  style  of  foot ;  he  was  well  shod  ;  his  tailor  loved  to 
clothe  him.  Godefroid  neither  rolled  his  r's  nor  lapsed  into 
Normanisms  nor  Gascon ;  he  spoke  pure  and  correct  French, 
and  tied  his  cravat  correctly  (like  Finot).  He  had  neither 
father  nor  mother — such  luck  had  he  ! — and  his  guardian  was 
the  Marquis  d'Aiglemont,  his  cousin  by  marriage.  He  could 
go  among  city  people  as  he  chose,  and  the  Faubourg  Saint- 
Germain  could  make  no  objection  ;  for,  fortunately,  a  young 
bachelor  is  allowed  to  make  his  own  pleasure  his  sole  rule  of 
life,  he  is  at  liberty  to  betake  himself  wherever  amusement  is 
to  be  found,  and  to  shun  the  gloomy  places  where  cares 
flourish  and  multiply.  Finally,  he  had  been  vaccinated  (you 
know  what  I  mean,  Blondet). 

"And  yet,  in  spite  of  all  these  virtues,"  continued  Bixiou, 
"  he  might  very  well  have  been  a  very  unhappy  young  man. 
Eh!  eh!  that  word  happiness,  unhappily,  seems  to  us  to  mean 


THE   FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN.  307 

something  absolute,  a  delusion  which  sets  so  many  wiseacres 
inquiring  what  happiness  is.  A  very  clever  woman  said  that 
'  Happiness  was  where  you  chose  to  put  it.'  " 

"She  formulated  a  dismal  truth,"  said  Blondet. 

"And  a  moral,"  added  Finot. 

"  Double  distilled,"  said  Blondet.  "  Happiness,  like  Good, 
like  Evil,  is  relative.  Wherefore  La  Fontaine  used  to  hope 
that  in  course  of  time  the  damned  would  feel  as  much  at 
home  in  hell  as  a  fish  in  water." 

"La  Fontaine's  sayings  are  known  in  Philistia!"  put  in 
Bixiou. 

"  Happiness  at  six-and-twenty  in  Paris  is  not  the  happiness 
of  six-and-twenty  at — say  Blois,"  continued  Blondet,  taking 
no  notice  of  the  interruption.  "  And  those  that  proceed  from 
this  text  to  rail  at  the  instability  of  opinion  are  either  knaves 
or  fools  for  their  pains.  Modern  medicine,  which  passed  (it 
is  its  fairest  title  to  glory)  from  a  hypothetical  to  a  positive 
science,  through  the  influence  of  the  great  analytical  school 
of  Paris,  has  proved  beyond  a  doubt  that  a  man  is  periodically 
renewed  throughout " 

"  New  haft,  new  blade,  like  Jeannot's  knife,  and  yet  you 
think  that  he  is  still  the  same  man,"  broke  in  Bixiou.  "  So 
there  are  several  lozenges  in  the  harlequin's  coat  that  we  call 
happiness  ;  and— well,  there  was  neither  hole  nor  stain  in 
this  Godefroid's  costume.  A  young  man  of  six-and-twenty, 
who  would  be  happy  in  love,  who  would  be  loved,  that  is  to 
say,  not  for  his  blossoming  youth,  nor  for  his  wit,  nor  for  his 
figure,  but  spontaneously,  and  not  even  merely  in  return  for 
his  own  love ;  a  young  man,  I  say,  who  has  found  love  in  the 
abstract,  to  quote  Royer-Collard,  might  yet  very  possibly  fi 
never  a  farthing  in  the  purse  which  She,  loving  and  beloved, 
embroidered  for  him  ;  he  might  owe  rent  to  his  landlord  ;  he 
might  be  unable  to  pay  the  bootmaker  before  mentioned  ;  his 
ver°y  tailor,  like  France  herself,  might  at  last  show  signs 
disaffection.  In  short,  he  might  have  lore  and  yet  be  poor. 


308  THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN. 

And  poverty  spoils  a  young  man's  happiness,  unless  he  holds 
our  transcendental  views  of  the  fusion  of  interests.  I  know- 
nothing  more  wearing  than  happiness  within  combined  with 
adversity  without.  It  is  as  if  you  had  one  leg  freezing  in  the 
draught  from  the  door,  and  the  other  half-roasted  by  a  brasier 
— as  I  have  at  this  moment.  I  hope  to  be  understood. 
Comes  there  an  echo  from  thy  vest-pocket,  Blondet  ?  Be- 
tween ourselves,  let  the  heart  alone,  it  spoils  the  intellect. 

"  Let  us  resume.  Godefroid  de  Beaudenord  was  respected 
by  his  tradespeople,  for  they  were  paid  with  tolerable  regu- 
larity. The  witty  woman  before  quoted — I  cannot  give  her 
name,  for  she  is  still  living,  thanks  to  her  want  of  heart " 

"Who  is  this?" 

"The  Marquise  d'Espard.  She  said  that  a  young  man 
ought  to  live  on  an  entresol ;  there  should  be  no  sign  of 
domesticity  about  the  place  ;  no  cook,  no  kitchen,  an  old 
manservant  to  wait  upon  him,  and  no  pretense  of  a  perma- 
nence. In  her  opinion,  any  other  sort  of  establishment  is  bad 
form.  Godefroid  de  Beaudenord,  faithful  to  this  programme, 
lodged  on  an  entresol  on  the  Quai  Malaquais  ;  he  had,  how- 
ever, been  obliged  to  have  this  much  in  common  with  mar- 
ried couples,  he  had  put  a  bedstead  in  his  room,  though  for 
that  matter  it  was  so  narrow  that  he  seldom  slept  in  it.  An 
Englishwoman  might  have  visited  his  rooms  and  found  nothing 
'  improper '  there.  Finot,  you  have  yet  to  learn  the  great 
law  of  the  '  Improper  '  that  rules  Britain.  But,  for  the  sake 
of  the  bond  between  us — that  bill  for  a  thousand  francs — I 
will  just  give  you  some  idea  of  it.  I  have  been  in  England 
myself.  I  will  give  him  wit  enough  for  a  couple  of  thousand," 
he  added  in  an  aside  to  Blondet. 

"  In  England,  Finot,  you  grow  extremely  intimate  with  a 
woman  in  the  course  of  an  evening,  at  a  ball  or  wherever  it 
is ;  next  day  you  meet  her  in  the  street  and  look  as  though 
you  knew  her  again — '  improper.'  At  dinner  you  discover  a 
delightful  man  beneath  your  left-hand  neighbor's  dress-coat ; 


THE  FIRM  OF  NUCIMGEN.  309 

a  clever  man  ;  no  high-mightiness,  no  constraint,  nothing  of 
an  Englishman  about  him.  In  accordance  with  the  tradition 
of  French  breeding,  so  urbane,  so  gracious  as  they  are,  you 
address  your  neighbor — 'improper.'  At  a  ball  you  walk  up 
to  a  pretty  woman  to  ask  her  to  dance — '  improper.'  You  wax 
enthusiastic,  you  argue,  laugh,  and  give  yourself  out,  you  fling 
yourself  heart  and  soul  into  the  conversation,  you  give  expres- 
sion to  your  real  feelings,  you  play  when  you  are  at  the  card- 
table,  chat  while  you  chat,  eat  while  you  eat — '  improper ! 
improper  !  improper ! '  Stendhal,  one  of  the  cleverest  and 
profoundest  minds  of  the  age,  hit  off  the  '  improper '  excel- 
lently well  when  he  said  that  such-and-such  a  British  peer  did 
not  dare  to  cross  his  legs  when  he  sat  alone  before  his  own 
hearth  for  fear  of  being  improper.  An  English  gentlewoman, 
were  she  one  of  the  rabid  '  Saints  ' — that  most  straitest  sect  of 
Protestants  that  would  leave  their  whole  family  to  starve  if  the 
said  family  did  anything  '  improper ' — may  play  the  deuce's 
own  delight  in  her  bedroom,  and  need  not  be  '  improper,'  but 
she  would  look  on  herself  as  lost  if  she  received  a  visit  from  a 
man  of  her  acquaintance  in  the  aforesaid  room.  Thanks  to 
propriety,  London  and  its  inhabitants  will  be  found  petrified 
some  of  these  days." 

"And  to  think  that  there  are  asses  here  in  France  that 
want  to  import  the  solemn  tomfoolery  that  the  English  keep 
up  among  themselves  with  that  admirable  self-possession  which 
you  know!"  added  Blondet.  "It  is  enough  to  make  any 
man  shudder  if  he  has  seen  the  English  at  home,  and  recollects 
the  charming,  gracious  French  manners.  Sir  Walter  Scott 
was  afraid  to  paint  women  as  they  are  for  fear  of  being  '  im- 
proper ; '  and  at  the  close  of  his  life  repented  of  the  creation 
of  the  great  character  of  Effie  in  '  The  Heart  of  Midlothian.' 

"  Do  you  wish  not  to  be  '  improper '  in  England  ?  "  asked 
Bixiou,  addressing  Finot. 

"Well?" 

"  Go  to  the  Tuileries  and  look  at  a  figure  there,  something 


310  THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN. 

like  a  fireman  carved  in  marble  ('Themistocles,'  the  statuary 
calls  it),  try  to  walk  like  the  commandant's  statue,  and  you 
will  never  be  '  improper. '  It  was  through  strict  observance  of 
the  great  law  of  the  /wproper  that  Godefroid's  happiness  be- 
came complete.  Here  is  the  story : 

"  Beaudenord  had  a  tiger,  not  a  '  groom,'  as  they  write  that 
know  nothing  of  society.  The  tiger,  a  diminutive  Irish  page, 
called  Paddy,  Toby,  Joby  (which  you  please),  was  three  feet 
in  height  by  twenty  inches  in  breadth,  a  weasel-faced  infant, 
with  nerves  of  steel  tempered  in  fire-water,  and  agile  as  a 
squirrel.  He  drove  a  landau  with  a  skill  never  yet  at  fault  in 
London  or  Paris.  He  had  a  lizard's  eye,  as  sharp  as  my  own, 
and  he  could  mount  a  horse  like  the  elder  Franconi.  With 
the  rosy  cheeks  and  yellow  hair  of  one  of  Ruben's  Madonnas, 
he  was  double-faced  as  a  prince,  and  as  knowing  as  an  old 
attorney ;  in  short,  at  the  age  of  ten  he  was  nothing  more  nor 
less  than  a  blossom  of  depravity,  gambling  and  swearing, 
partial  to  jam  and  punch,  pert  as  a  feuilleton  (news-skit),  im- 
pudent and  light-fingered  as  any  Paris  street-arab.  He  had 
been  a  source  of  honor  and  profit  to  a  well-known  English 
lord,  for  whom  he  had  already  won  seven  hundred  thousand 
francs  on  the  racecourse.  The  aforesaid  nobleman  set  no 
small  store  on  Toby.  His  tiger  was  a  curiosity,  the  very 
smallest  tiger  in  town.  Perched  aloft  on  the  back  of  a  thor- 
oughbred, Joby  looked  like  a  hawk.  Yet — the  great  man  dis- 
missed him.  Not  for  greediness,  not  for  dishonesty,  nor 
murder,  nor  for  criminal  conversation,  nor  for  bad  manners, 
nor  rudeness  to  my  lady,  nor  for  cutting  holes  in  my  lady's 
own  woman's  pockets,  nor  because  he  had  been  '  got  at '  by 
some  of  his  master's  rivals  on  the  turf,  nor  for  playing  games 
of  a  Sunday,  nor  for  bad  behavior  of  any  sort  or  description. 
Toby  might  have  done  all  these  things,  he  might  even  have 
spoken  to  milord  before  milord  spoke  to  him,  and  his  noble 
master  might,  perhaps,  have  pardoned  that  breach  of  the  law- 
domestic.  Milord  would  have  put  up  with  a  good  deal  from 


THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN.  311 

Toby;  he  was  very  fond  of  him.  Toby  could  drive  a  tandem 
dog-cart,  riding  on  the  wheeler,  postillion  fashion  ;  his  legs 
did  not  reach  the  shafts,  he  looked  in  fact  very  much  like  one 
of  the  cherub  heads  circling  about  the  Eternal  Father  in  old 
Italian  pictures.  But  an  English  journalist  wrote  a  delicious 
description  of  the  little  angel,  in  the  course  of  which  he  said 
that  Paddy  was  quite  too  pretty  for  a  tiger;  in  fact,  he  offered 
to  bet  that  Paddy  was  a  tame  tigress.  The  description,  on  the 
heads  of  it,  was  calculated  to  poison  minds  and  end  in  some- 
thing 'improper.'  And  the  superlative  of  '  improper  '  is  the 
way  to  the  gallows.  Milord's  circumspection  was  highly  ap- 
proved by  my  lady. 

"  But  poor  Toby,  now  that  his  precise  position  in  insular 
zoology  had  been  called  in  question,  found  himself  hopelessly 
out  of  place.  At  that  time  Godefroid  had  blossomed  out  at 
the  jjrench  Embassy  in  London,  where  he  learned  the  adven- 
tures of  Joby,  Toby,  Paddy.  Godefroid  found  the  infant 
weeping  over  a  pot  of  jam  (he  had  already  lost  the  guineas 
with  which  milord  gilded  his  misfortune).  Godefroid  took 
possession  of  him  ;  and  so  it  fell  out  that  on  his  return  among 
us  he  brought  back  with  him  the  sweetest  thing  in  tigers  from 
England.  He  was  known  by  his  tiger — as  Couture  is  known 
by  his  waistcoats — and  found  no  difficulty  in  entering  the 
fraternity  of  the  club  yclept  to-day  the  Grammont.  He  had 
renounced  the  diplomatic  career;  he  ceased  accordingly  to 
alarm  the  susceptibilities  of  the  ambitious ;  and  as  he  had  no 
very  dangerous  amount  of  intellect,  he  was  well-looked  upon 
everywhere. 

"  Some  of  us  would  feel  mortified  if  we  saw  only  smiling 
faces  wherever  we  went ;  we  enjoy  the  sour  contortions  of 
envy.  Godefroid  did  not  like  to  be  disliked.  Every  one  has 
his  taste.  Now  for  the  solid,  practical  aspects  of  life  ! 

"  The  distinguishing  feature  of  his  chambers,  where  I  have 
licked  my  lips  over  breakfast  more  than  once,  was  a  mysterious 
dressing-closet,  nicely  decorated,  and  comfortably  appointed, 


312  THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN. 

with  a  grate  in  it  and  a  bath-tub.  It  gave  upon  a  narrow 
staircase,  the  folding  doors  were  noiseless,  the  locks  well 
oiled,  the  hinges  discreet,  the  window-panes  of  frosted  glass, 
the  curtain  impervious  to  light.  While  the  bedroom  was,  as 
it  ought  to  have  been,  in  a  fine  disorder  which  would  suit 
the  most  exacting  painter  in  water-colors ;  while  everything 
therein  was  redolent  of  the  bohemian  life  of  a  young  man  of 
fashion,  the  dressing-closet  was  like  a  shrine — white,  spotless, 
neat,  and  warm.  There  were  no  draughts  from  door  or  win- 
dow, the  carpet  had  been  made  soft  for  bare  feet  hastily  put 
to  the  floor  in  a  sudden  panic  of  alarm — which  stamps  him  as 
your  thoroughbred  dandy  that  knows  life ;  for  here,  in  a  few 
moments,  he  may  show  himself  either  a  noodle  or  a  master  in 
those  little  details  in  which  a  man's  character  is  revealed. 
The  marquise  previously  quoted — no,  it  was  the  Marquise  de 
Rochefide — came  out  of  that  dressing-closet  in  a  furious  rage, 
and  never  went  back  again.  She  discovered  nothing  *  im- 
proper '  in  it.  Godefroid  used  to  keep  a  little  cupboard  full 
of " 

"Waistcoats?"  suggested  Finot. 

"  Come,  now,  just  like  you,  great  Turcaret  that  you  are. 
(I  shall  never  form  that  fellow.)  Why,  no.  Full  of  cakes, 
and  fruit,  and  dainty  little  flasks  of  Malaga  and  Lunel ;  an 
en  cas  de  nuit  in  Louis  Quatorze's  style ;  anything  that  can 
tickle  the  delicate  and  well-bred  appetite  of  sixteen  quarter- 
ings.  A  knowing  old  manservant,  very  strong  in  matters 
veterinary,  waited  on  the  horses  and  groomed  Godefroid. 
He  had  been  with  the  late  Monsieur  de  Beaudenord,  Gode- 
froid's  father,  and  bore  Godefroid  an  inveterate  affection,  a 
kind  of  heart  complaint  which  has  almost  disappeared  among 
domestic  servants  since  savings  banks  were  established. 

"All  material  well-being  is  based  upon  arithmetic.  You, 
to  whom  Paris  is  known  down  to  its  very  excrescences,  will 
see  that  Beaudenord  must  have  required  about  seventeen  thou- 
sand livres  per  annum ;  for  he  paid  some  seventeen  francs  of 


THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN.  313 

taxes  and  spent  a  thousand  crowns  on  his  own  whims.  Well, 
dear  boys,  when  Godefroid  came  of  age,  the  Marquis  d'Aigle- 
mont  submitted  to  him  such  an  account  of  his  trust  as  none 
of  us  would  be  likely  to  give  a  nephew ;  Godefroid's  name 
was  inscribed  as  the  owner  of  eighteen  thousand  livres  of 
rentes  (government  stock),  a  remnant  of  his  father's  wealth 
spared  by  the  harrow  of  the  great  reduction  under  the  Republic 
and  the  hailstorms  of  Imperial  arrears.  D'Aiglemont,  that 
upright  guardian,  also  put  his  ward  in  possession  of  some  thirty 
thousand  francs  of  savings  invested  with  the  firm  of  Nucingen ; 
saying,  with  all  the  charm  of  a  great  lord  and  the  indulgence 
of  a  soldier  of  the  Empire,  that  he  had  contrived  to  put  it 
aside  for  his  ward's  young  man's  follies.  'If  you  will  take 
my  advice,  Godefroid,'  added  he,  '  instead  of  squandering 
the  money  like  a  fool,  as  so  many  young  men  do,  let  it  go  in 
follies  that  will  be  useful  to  you  afterward.  Take  an  attache's 
post  at  Turin,  and  then  go  to  Naples,  and  from  Naples  to 
London,  and  you  will  be  amused  and  learn  something  for 
your  money.  Afterward,  if  you  think  of  a  career,  the  time 
and  the  money  will  not  have  been  thrown  away.'  The  late 
lamented  d'Aiglemont  had  more  sense  than  people  credited 
him  with,  which  is  more  than  can  be  said  of  some  of  us." 

"A  young  fellow  that  starts  with  an  assured  income  of 
eighteen  thousand  livres  at  one-and-twenty  is  lost,"  said 
Couture. 

"  Unless  he  is  miserly  or  very  much  above  the  ordinary 
level,"  added  Blondet. 

"  Well,  Godefroid  sojourned  in  the  four  capitals  of  Italy," 
continued  Bixiou.  "  He  lived  in  England  and  Germany,  he 
spent  some  little  time  at  St.  Petersburg,  he  ran  over  Holland ; 
but  he  parted  company  with  the  aforesaid  thirty  thousand 
francs  by  living  as  if  he  had  thirty  thousand  a  year.  Every- 
where he  found  the  same  supreme  de  volatile  (sublime  poultry), 
the  same  aspics,  and  French  wines ;  he  heard  French  spoken 
wherever  he  went— in  short,  he  never  got  away  from  Paris. 


314  THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN. 

He  ought,  of  course,  to  have  tried  to  deprave  his  disposition, 
to  fence  himself  in  triple  brass,  to  get  rid  of  his  illusions,  to 
learn  to  hear  anything  said  without  a  blush,  and  to  master  the 
inmost  secrets  of  the  Powers.  Pooh  !  with  a  good  deal  of 
trouble  he  equipped  himself  with  four  languages — that  is  to 
say,  he  laid  in  a  stock  of  four  words  for  one  idea.  Then  he 
came  back,  and  certain  tedious  dowagers,  styled  '  conquests ' 
abroad,  were  left  disconsolate.  Godefroid  came  back,  shy, 
scarcely  formed,  a  good  fellow  with  a  confiding  disposition, 
incapable  of  saying  ill  of  any  one  who  honored  him  with  an 
admittance  to  his  house,  too  stanch  to  be  a  diplomatist — 
altogether  he  was  what  we  call  a  thoroughly  whole-souled 
good  fellow." 

"To  cut  it  short,  a  kid  with  eighteen  thousand  livres  per 
annum  to  drop  over  the  first  investment  that  turns  up,"  said 
Couture. 

"  That  confounded  Couture  has  such  a  habit  of  anticipating 
dividends  that  he  is  anticipating  the  end  of  my  tale.  Where 
was  I?  Oh  !  Beaudenord  came  back.  When  he  took  up  his 
abode  on  the  Quai  Malaquais,  it  came  to  pass  that  a  thousand 
francs  over  and  above  his  needs  was  altogether  insufficient  to 
keep  up  his  share  of  a  box  at  the  Italiens  and  the  opera 
properly.  When  he  lost  twenty-five  or  thirty  louis  at  play  at 
one  swoop,  naturally  he  paid;  when  he  won,  he  spent  the 
money ;  so  should  we  if  we  were  fools  enough  to  be  drawn  into 
a  bet.  Beaudenord,  feeling  pinched  with  his  eighteen  thousand 
francs,  saw  the  necessity  of  creating  what  we  to-day  call  a 
balance  in  hand.  It  was  a  great  notion  of  his  'not  to  get 
too  deep.'  He  took  counsel  of  his  sometime  guardian. 
'The  funds  are  now  at  par,  -my  dear  boy,'  quoth  d'Aigle- 
mont ;  '  sell  out.  I  have  sold  out  mine  and  my  wife's. 
Nucingen  has  all  my  capital,  and  is  giving  me  six  per  cent.; 
do  likewise,  you  will  have  one  per  cent,  the  more  upon  your 
capital,  and  with  that  you  will  be  quite  comfortable.' 

"  In  three  days'  time  our  Godefroid  was  comfortable.     His 


THE  FIRM  OF  NLCINGEN,  315 

increase   of  income   exactly   supplied   his   superfluities;    his 
material  happiness  was  complete. 

"  Suppose  that  it  were  possible  to  read  the  minds  of  all  the 
young  men  in  Paris  at  one  glance  (as,  it  appears,  will  be  done 
at  the  Day  of  Judgment  with  all  the  millions  upon  millions 
that  have  groveled  in  all  spheres,  and  worn  all  uniforms  or 
the  uniform  of  nature),  and  to  ask  them  whether  happiness  at 
six-and-twenty  is  or  is  not  made  up  of  the  following  items — 
to  wit :  to  own  a  saddle-horse  and  a  tilbury,  or  a  cab,  with  a 
fresh,  rosy-faced  Toby,  Joby,  Paddy  no  bigger  than  your  fist, 
and  to  hire  an  unimpeachable  brougham  for  twelve  francs  an 
evening ;  to  appear  elegantly  arrayed,  agreeably  to  the  laws 
that  regulate  a  man's  clothes,  at  eight  o'clock,  noon,  four 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  and  in  the  evening;  to  be  well  re- 
ceived at  every  embassy,  and  to  cull  the  short-lived  flowers  of 
superficial,  cosmopolitan  friendships;  to  be  not  insufferably 
handsome,  to  carry  your  head,  your  coat  and  your  name  well ; 
to  inhabit  a  charming  little  entresol  after  the  pattern  of  the 
rooms  just  described  on  the  Quai  Malaquais;  to  be  able  to  ask 
a  party  of  friends  to  dine  at  the  Rocher  de  Cancale  without  a 
previous  consultation  with  your  trousers'  pocket ;  never  to  be 
pulled  up  in  any  rational  project  by  the  words,  'And  the 
money?'  and,  finally,  to  be  able  to  renew  at  pleasure  the 
pink  rosettes  that  adorn  the  ears  of  your  three  thoroughbreds 
and  the  lining  of  your  hat? 

"  To  such  inquiry  any  ordinary  young  man  (and  we  our- 
selves that  are  not  ordinary  men)  would  reply  that  the  happi- 
ness is  incomplete ;  that  it  is  like  the  Madeleine  without  the 
altar ;  that  a  man  must  love  and  be  loved,  or  love  without 
return,  or  be  loved  without  loving,  or  love  at  cross-purposes. 
Now  for  happiness  as  a  mental  condition. 

"  In  January,  1823,  after  Godefroid  de  Beaudenord  had  set 
foot  in  the  various  social  circles  which  it  pleased  him  to  enter, 
and  knew  his  way  about  in  them,  and  felt  himself  secure  amid 
these  joys,  he  saw  the  necessity  of  a  sunshade — the  advantage 


316  THE  FIRM   OF  NUCINGEN. 

of  having  a  great  lady  to  complain  of,  instead  of  chewing  the 
stems  of  roses  bought  for  ten  sous  apiece  of  Madame  Prevost, 
after  the  manner  of  the  callow  youngsters  that  chirp  and  cackle 
in  the  lobbies  of  the  opera,  like  chickens  in  a  coop.  In  short, 
he  resolved  to  centre  his  ideas,  his  sentiments,  his  affections 

upon  a  woman,  one  woman  ! — LA  PHAMME  !     Ah  ! 

"At  first  he  conceived  the  preposterous  notion  of  an  un- 
happy passion,  and  gyrated  for  a  while  about  his  fair  cousin, 
Mme.  d'Aiglemont,  not  perceiving  that  she  had  already  danced 
the  waltz  in  'Faust'  with  a  diplomatist.  The  year  '25  went 
by,  spent  in  tentatives,  in  futile  flirtations,  and  an  unsuccessful 
quest.  The  loving  object  of  which  he  was  in  search  did  not 
appear.  Passion  is  extremely  rare ;  and  in  our  time  as  many 
barriers  have  been  raised  against  passion  in  social  life  as  barri- 
cades in  the  streets.  In  truth,  my  brothers,  the  '  improper ' 
is  gaining  upon  us,  I  tell  you  ! 

"As  we  incur  reproach  for  following  on  the  heels  of  portrait 
painters,  auctioneers,  and  fashionable  dressmakers,  I  will  not 
inflict  any  description  upon  you  of  HER  in  whom  Godefroid 
recognized  the  female  of  his  species.  Age,  nineteen  ;  height, 
four  feet  eleven  inches ;  fair  hair,  eyebrows  idem,  blue  eyes, 
forehead  neither  high  nor  low,  curved  nose,  little  mouth, 
short  turned-up  chin,  oval  face ;  distinguishing  signs — none. 
Such  was  the  description  on  the  passport  of  the  beloved  object. 
You  will  not  ask  more  than  the  police,  or  their  worships  the 
mayors,  of  all  the  towns  and  communes  of  France,  the  gen- 
darmes and  the  rest  of  the  powers  that  be  ?  In  other  respects 
— I  give  you  my  word  for  it — she  was  a  rough  sketch  of  a 
Venus  de'  Medici. 

"  The  first  time  that  Godefroid  went  to  one  of  the  balls  for 
which  Madame  de  Nucingen  enjoyed  a  certain  not  undeserved 
reputation,  he  caught  a  glimpse  of  his  future  lady-love  in  a 
quadrille,  and  was  set  marveling  by  that  height  of  four  feet 
eleven  inches.  The  fair  hair  rippled  in  a  shower  of  curls 
about  the  little  girlish  head,  she  looked  as  fresh  as  a  naiad 


THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN.  317 

peeping  out  through  the  crystal  pane  of  her  stream  to  take  a 
look  at  the  spring  flowers.  (This  is  quite  in  the  modern  style, 
strings  of  phrases  as  endless  as  the  macaroni  on  the  table  a 
while  ago.)  On  that  '  eyebrows  idem  '  (no  offense  to  the  pre- 
fect of  police)  Parny,  that  writer  of  light  and  playful  verse, 
would  have  hung  half-a-dozen  couplets,  comparing  them  very 
agreeably  to  Cupid's  bow,  at  the  same  time  bidding  us  observe 
that  the  dart  was  beneath  ;  the  said  dart,  however,  was  neither 
very  potent  nor  very  penetrating,  for  as  yet  it  was  controlled 
by  the  namby-pamby  sweetness  of  a  Mademoiselle  de  la  Val- 
liere  as  depicted  on  fire-screens,  at  the  moment  when  she 
solemnizes  her  betrothal  in  the  sight  of  heaven,  any  solemni- 
zation before  the  registrar  being  quite  out  of  the  question. 

"  You  know  the  effect  of  fair  hair  and  blue  eyes  in  the  soft, 
voluptuous  decorous  dance?  Such  a  girl  does  not  knock 
audaciously  at  your  heart,  like  the  dark-haired  damsels  that 
seem  to  say  after  the  fashion  of  Spanish  beggars :  '  Your  money 
or  your  life;  give  me  five  francs  or  take  my  contempt!' 
These  insolent  and  somewhat  dangerous  beauties  may  find 
favor  in  the  sight  of  many  men,  but  to  my  thinking  the  blonde 
that  has  the  good-fortune  to  look  extremely  tender  and 
yielding,  while  foregoing  none  of  her  rights  to  scold,  to  tease, 
to  use  unmeasured  language,  to  be  jealous  without  grounds, 
to  do  anything,  in  short,  that  makes  woman  adorable — the 
fair-haired  girl,  I  say,  will  be  always  more  sure  to  marry  than 
the  ardent  brunette.  Firewood  is  dear,  you  see. 

"  Isaure,  white  as  an  Alsacienne  (she  first  saw  the  light  at 
Strasbourg,  and  spoke  German  with  a  slight  and  very  agreeable 
French  accent),  danced  to  admiration.  H-r  feet,  omitted  on 
the  passport,  though  they  really  might  have  found  a  place  there 
under  the  heading  '  Distinguishing  Signs,'  were  remarkable  for 
their  small  size,  and  for  that  particular  something  which  old- 
fashioned  dancing-masters  used  to  call  flic-flac,  a  something 
that  put  you  in  mind  of  Mademoiselle  Mars'  agreeable  de- 
livery, for  all  the  Muses  are  sisters,  and  dancer  and  poet 


318  THE  FIRM  OF  NUC1NGEN. 

alike  have  their  feet  upon  the  earth.  Isaure's  feet  spoke 
lightly  and  swiftly  with  a  clearness  and  precision  which 
augured  well  for  the  things  of  the  heart.  lElle  a  du  flic-flac  ' 
(she  has  some  flic-flac),  was  old  Marcel's  highest  word  of 
praise,  and  old  Marcel  was  the  dancing-master  that  deserved 
the  epithet  of  'the  Great.'  People  used  to  say  'the  Great 
Marcel,'  as  they  said  '  Frederick  the  Great,'  and  in  Frederick's 
time." 

"  Did  Marcel  compose  any  ballets?  "  inquired  Finot. 

"Yes,  something  in  the  style  of Les  Quatre  Elements  (The 
Four  Elements)  and  L?  Europe  galante"  (The  Gallants  of 
Europe). 

"What  times  they  were,  when  great  nobles  dressed  the 
dancers  !  "  said  Finot. 

"Improper!"  said  Bixiou.  "  Isaure  did  not  raise  herself 
on  the  tips  of  her  toes,  she  stayed  on  the  ground,  she  swayed 
in  the  dance  without  jerks,  and  neither  more  nor  less  volup- 
tuously than  a  young  lady  ought  to  do.  There  was  a  profound 
philosophy  in  Marcel's  remark  that  every  age  and  condition 
has  its  dance  ;  a  married  woman  should  not  dance  like  a 
young  girl,  nor  a  little  jackanapes  like  a  capitalist,  nor  a  sol- 
dier like  a  page ;  he  even  went  so  far  as  to  say  that  the  in- 
fantry ought  not  to  dance  like  the  cavalry,  and  from  this  point 
he  proceeded  to  classify  the  world  at  large.  All  these  fine 
distinctions  seem  very  far  away." 

"  Ah  !  "  said  Blondet,  "  you  have  set  your  finger  on  a  great 
calamity.  If  Marcel  had  been  properly  understood,  there 
would  have  been  no  French  Revolution." 

"It  had  been  Godefroid's  privilege  to  run  over  Europe," 
resumed  Bixiou,  "  nor  had  he  neglected  his  opportunities  of 
making  a  thorough  comparative  study  of  European  dancing. 
Perhaps  but  for  profound  diligence  in  the  pursuit  of  what  is 
usually  held  to  be  useless  knowledge,  he  would  never  have 
fallen  in  love  with  this  young  lady  ;  as  it  was,  out  of  the  three 
hundred  guests  that  crowded  the  handsome  rooms  in  the  Rue 


THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN.  319 

Saint-Lazare,  he  alone  comprehended  the  unpublished  romance 
revealed  by  a  garrulous  quadrille.  People  certainly  noticed 
Isaure  d'Aldrigger's  dancing ;  but  in  this  present  century  the 
cry  is,  '  Skim  lightly  over  the  surface,  do  not  lean  your  weight 
on  it ;  '  so  one  said  (he  was  a  notary's  clerk)  :  '  There  is  a 
girl  that  dances  uncommonly  well ; '  another  (a  lady  in  a  tur- 
ban) :  '  There  is  a  young  lady  that  dances  enchantingly ; '  and 
a  third  (a  woman  of  thirty)  :  '  That  little  thing  is  not  dancing 
badly.'  But  to  return  to  the  great  Marcel,  let  us  parody  his 
best-known  saying  with,  *  How  much  there  is  in  an  avant- 
£**.'" 

"  And  let  us  get  on  a  little  faster,"  said  Blondet ;  "  you  are 
maundering." 

"  Isaure,"  continued  Bixiou,  looking  askance  at  Blondet, 
"  wore  a  simple  white  crepe  dress  with  green  ribbons ;  she  had 
a  camellia  in  her  hair,  a  camellia  at  her  waist,  another  camellia 
at  her  skirt-hem,  and  a  camellia " 

"  Come,  now  !   here  come  Sancho's  three  hundred  goats." 

"  Therein  lies  all  literature,  dear  boy.  Clarissa  is  a  master- 
piece, there  are  fourteen  volumes  of  her,  and  the  most  wooden- 
headed  playwright  would  give  you  the  whole  of  Clarissa  in  a 
single  act.  So  long  as  I  amuse  you,  what  have  you  to  com- 
plain of?  That  costume  was  positively  lovely.  Don't  you 
like  camellias  ?  Would  you  rather  have  dahlias  ?  No  ?  Very 
good,  chestnuts  then,  here's  for  you."  (And  probably  Bixiou 
flung  a  chestnut  across  the  table,  for  we  heard  something  drop 
on  a  plate.) 

"I  was  wrong,  I  acknowledge  it.     Go  on,"  said  Blondet. 

"I  resume.  'Pretty  enough  to  marry,  isn't  she?'  said 
Rastignac,  coming  up  to  Godefroid  de  Beaudenord,  and  in- 
dicating the  little  one  with  the  spotless  white  camellias,  every 
petal  intact. 

"Rastignac  being  an  intimate  friend,  Godefroid  answered 
in  a  low  voice,  '  Well,  so  I  was  thinking.  I  was  saying  to 
myself  that  instead  of  enjoying  my  happiness  with  fear  and 


320  THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN. 

trembling  at  every  moment ;  instead  of  taking  a  world  of 
trouble  to  whisper  a  word  in  an  inattentive  ear,  of  looking 
over  the  house  at  the  Italiens  to  see  if  some  one  wears  a 
red  flower  or  a  white  in  her  hair,  or  watching  along  the  Corso 
for  a  gloved  hand  on  a  carriage-door,  as  we  used  to  do  at 
Milan  ;  instead  of  snatching  a  mouthful  of  bun  like  a  lackey 
finishing  off  a  bottle  behind  a  door,  or  wearing  out  one's  wits 
with  giving  and  receiving  letters  like  a  postman — letters  that 
consist  not  of  a  mere  couple  of  tender  lines,  but  expand  to 
five  folio  volumes  to-day  and  contract  to  a  couple  of  sheets 
to-morrow  (a  tiresome  practice) ;  instead  of  dragging  along 
over  the  ruts  and  dodging  behind  hedges — it  would  be  better 
to  give  way  to  the  adorable  passion  that  Jean -Jacques  Rous- 
seau envied,  to  fall  frankly  in  love  with  a  girl  like  Isaure,  with 
a  view  to  making  her  my  wife,  if  upon  exchange  of  sentiments 
our  hearts  respond  to  each  other;  to  be  Werther,  in  short, 
with  a  happy  ending.' 

'"Which  is  a  common  weakness,'  returned  Rastignac  with- 
out laughing.  'Possibly  in  your  place  I  might  plunge  into 
the  unspeakable  delights  of  that  ascetic  course;  it  possesses 
the  merits  of  novelty  and  originality,  and  it  is  not  very  expen- 
sive. Your  Monna  Lisa  is  sweet,  but  inane  as  music  for  the 
ballet ;  I  give  you  warning.' 

"Rastignac  made  this  last  remark  in  a  way  which  set 
Beaudenord  thinking  that  his  friend  had  his  own  motives  for 
disenchanting  him ;  Beaudenord  had  not  been  a  diplomatist 
for  nothing;  he  fancied  that  Rastignac  wanted  to  cut  him  out. 
If  a  man  mistakes  his  vocation,  the  false  start  none  the  less 
influences  him  for  the  rest  of  his  life.  Godefroid  was  so 
evidently  smitten  with  Mademoiselle  Isaure  d'Aldrigger  that 
Rastignac  went  off  to  a  tall  girl  chatting  in  the  card-room. 
'Malvina,'  he  said,  lowering  his  voice,  'your  sister  has  just 
netted  a  fish  worth  eighteen  thousand  francs  a  year.  He  has 
a  name,  a  manner,  and  a  certain  position  in  the  world ;  keep 
an  eye  upon  them ;  be  careful  to  gain  Isaure's  confidence ;  and 


THE  FIRM  OF  AUCINGEN.  321 

if  they  philander,  do  not  let  her  send  a  word  to  him  unless 
you  have  seen  it  first ' 

<;  Toward  two  o'clock  in  the  morning,  Isaure  was  standing 
beside  a  diminutive  Shepherdess  of  the  Alps,  a  little  woman 
of  forty,  coquettish  as  a  Zerlina.  A  footman  announced  that 
'  Madame  la  Baronne's  carriage  stops  the  way,'  and  Godefroid 
forthwith  saw  his  beautiful  maiden  out  of  a  German  song  draw 
her  fantastical  mother  into  the  cloak-room,  whither  Malvina 
followed  them ;  and  (boy  that  he  was)  he  must  needs  go  to 
discover  into  what  pot  of  preserves  the  infant  Joby  had  fallen, 
and  had  the  pleasure  of  watching  Isaure  and  Malvina  coaxing 
that  sparkling  person,  their  mamma,  into  her  pelisse,  with  all 
the  little  tender  precautions  required  for  a  night  journey  in 
Paris.  Of  course,  the  girls  on  their  side  watched  Beaudenord 
out  of  the  corners  of  their  eyes,  as  well-taught  kittens  watch  a 
mouse,  without  seeming  to  see  it  at  all.  With  a  certain  satis- 
faction Beaudenord  noted  the  bearing,  manner,  and  appear- 
ance of  the  tall,  well-gloved  Alsacian  servant  in  livery  who 
brought  three  pairs  of  fur-lined  overshoes  for  his  mistresses. 

"  Never  were  two  sisters  more  unlike  than  Isaure  and 
Malvina.  Malvina  the  elder  was  tall  and  dark-haired,  Isaure 
was  short  and  fair,  and  her  features  were  finely  and  delicately 
cut,  while  her  sister's  were  vigorous  and  striking.  Isaure  was 
one  of  those  women  who  reign  like  queens  through  their 
weakness,  such  a  woman  as  a  schoolboy  would  feel  it  incum- 
bent upon  him  to  protect ;  Malvina  was  the  Andalouse  of 
Mussel's  poem.  As  the  sisters  stood  together,  Isaure  looked 
like  a  miniature  beside  a  portrait  in  oils. 

"  '  She  is  rich  !  '  exclaimed  Godefroid,  going  back  to  Ras- 
tignac  in  the  ballroom. 

"'Who?' 

"  'That  young  lady.' 

'"Oh,  Isaure  d'Aldrigger?  Why,  yes.  The  mother  is  a 
widow ;  Nucingen  was  once  a  clerk  in  her  husband's  bank  at 
Strasbourg.  Do  you  want  to  see  them  again  ?  Just  turn  off 
21 


322  THE   FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN. 

a  compliment  for  Madame  de  Restaud ;  she  is  giving  a  ball 
the  day  after  to-morrow;  the  Baroness  d'Aldrigger  and  her 
two  daughters  will  be  there.  You  will  have  an  invitation.' 

"For  three  days  Godefroid  beheld  Isaure  in  the  camera 
obscura  of  his  brain — his  Isaure  with  her  white  camellias  and 
the  little  ways  she  had  with  her  head — saw  her  as  you  still  see 
the  bright  thing  on  which  you  have  been  gazing  after  your  eyes 
are  shut,  a  picture  grown  somewhat  smaller;  a  radiant,  brightly 
colored  vision  flashing  out  of  a  vortex  of  darkness." 

"Bixiou,  you  are  dropping  into  phenomena,  block  us  out 
our  pictures,"  put  in  Couture. 

"  Here  you  are,  gentlemen !  Here  is  the  picture  you 
ordered  !  "  (from  the  tones  of  Bixiou's  voice,  he  evidently  was 
posing  as  a  waiter.)  "  Finot !  attention,  one  has  to  pull  at 
your  mouth  as  a  jarvie  [cab-driver]  pulls  at  his  jade.  In  Ma- 
dame Theodora  Marguerite  Wilhelmine  Adolphus  (of  the  firm 
of  Adolphus  and  Company,  Mannheim),  relict  of  the  late 
Baron  d'Aldrigger,  you  might  expect  to  find  a  stout,  com- 
fortable  German,  compact  and  prudent,  with  a  fair  complexion 
mellowed  to  the  tint  of  the  foam  on  a  pot  of  beer ;  and  as  to 
virtues,  rich  in  all  the  patriarchal  good  qualities  that  Germany 
possesses — in  romances,  that  is  to  say.  Well,  there  was  not  a 
gray  hair  in  the  frisky  ringlets  that  she  wore  on  either  side  of 
her  face ;  she  was  still  as  fresh  and  as  brightly  colored  on  the 
cheek-bones  as  a  Nuremberg  doll ;  her  eyes  were  lively  and 
bright ;  a  closely  fitting,  pointed  bodice  set  off  the  slenderness 
of  her  waist.  Her  brow  and  temples  were  furrowed  by  a  few 
involuntary  wrinkles  which,  like  Ninon,  she  would  fain  have 
banished  from  her  head  to  her  heel,  but  they  persisted  in 
tracing  their  zigzags  in  the  more  conspicuous  place.  The  out- 
lines of  the  nose  had  somewhat  fallen  away,  and  the  tip  had 
reddened,  and  this  was  the  more  awkward  because  it  matched 
the  color  on  the  cheek-bones. 

"  An  only  daughter  and  an  heiress,  spoilt  by  her  father  and 
mother,  spoilt  by  her  husband  and  the  city  of  Strasbourg, 


THE   FIRM  OF  NUCINGEff.  323 

spoilt  still  by  two  daughters  who  worshiped  their  mother,  the 
Baroness  d'Aldrigger  indulged  a  taste  for  rose  color,  short 
petticoats,  and  a  knot  of  ribbon  at  the  point  of  the  tightly 
fitting  corselet  bodice.  Any  Parisian  meeting  the  baroness 
on  the  boulevard  would  smile  and  condemn  her  outright ;  he 
does  not  admit  any  plea  of  extenuating  circumstances,  like  a 
modern  jury  on  a  case  of  fratricide.  A  scoffer  is  always  super- 
ficial, and  in  consequence  cruel ;  the  rascal  never  thinks  of 
throwing  the  proper  share  of  ridicule  on  society  that  made  the 
individual  what  he  is ;  for  Nature  only  makes  dull  animals  of 
us,  we  owe  the  fool  to  artificial  conditions." 

"The  thing  that  I  admire  about  Bixiou  is  his  complete- 
ness," said  Blondet;  "whenever  he  is  not  gibing  at  others,  he 
is  laughing  at  himself." 

"I  will  be  even  with  you  for  that,  Blondet,"  returned 
Bixiou  in  a  significant  tone.  "If  the  little  baroness  was 
giddy,  careless,  selfish,  and  incapable  in  practical  matters, 
she  was  not  accountable  for  her  sins ;  the  responsibility  is 
divided  between  the  firm  of  Adolphus  and  Company  of 
Mannheim  and  Baron  d'Aldrigger  with  his  blind  love  for  his 
wife.  The  baroness  was  as  gentle  as  a  lamb;  she  had  a  soft 
heart  that  was  very  readily  moved ;  unluckily,  the  emotion 
never  lasted  long,  but  it  was  all  the  more  frequently  renewed. 

"  When  the  baron  died,  for  instance,  the  Shepherdess  all 
but  followed  him  to  the  tomb,  so  violent  and  sincere  was  her 
grief,  but — next  morning  there  were  green  peas  at  lunch,  she 
was  fond  of  green  peas,  the  delicious  green  peas  calmed  the 
crisis.  Her  daughters  and  her  servants  loved  her  so  blindly 
that  the  whole  household  rejoiced  over  a  circumstance  that 
enabled  them  to  hide  the  dolorous  spectacle  of  the  funeral 
from  the  sorrowing  baroness.  Isaure  and  Malvina  would  not 

o 

allow  their  idolized  mother  to  see  their  tears. 

"  While  the  requiem  was  being  chanted  they  diverted  her 
thoughts  to  the  choice  of  mourning  dresses.  While  the  coffin 
was  placed  in  the  huge,  black  and  white,  wax-besprinkled 


324  THE  FIRM   OF  NUCIA'GEN. 

catafalque  that  does  duty  for  some  three  thousand  dead  in  the 
course  of  its  career — so  I  was  informed  by  a  philosophically- 
minded  mute  whom  I  once  consulted  on  the  point  over  a 
couple  of  glasses  of  petit  blanc — while  an  indifferent  choir  was 
bawling  the  Dies  irce,  and  a  no  less  indifferent  priest  mum- 
bling the  office  for  the  dead,  do  you  know  what  the  friends  of 
the  departed  were  saying  as,  all  dressed  in  black  from  head  to 
foot,  they  sat  or  stood  in  the  church  ?  (Here  is  the  picture 
you  ordered.)  Stay,  do  you  see  them? 

"  '  How  much  do  you  suppose  old  d'Aldrigger  will  leave?  ' 
Desroches  asked  of  Taillefer.  You  remember  Taillefer  that 
gave  us  the  finest  orgie  ever  known  not  long  before  he  died  ?  " 

"But  was  Desroches  an  attorney  in  those  days?" 

"He  was  in  treaty  for  a  practice  in  1822,"  said  Couture. 
"It  was  a  bold  thing  to  do,  for  he  was  the  son  of  a  poor  clerk 
who  never  made  more  than  eighteen  hundred  francs  a  year, 
and  his  mother  sold  stamped  paper.  But  he  worked  very  hard 
from  1818  to  1822.  He  was  Derville's  fourth  clerk  when  he 
came ;  and  in  1819  he  was  second  !  " 

"Desroches?" 

"Yes.  Desroches,  like  the  rest  of  us,  once  groveled  in  the 
poverty  of  Job.  He  grew  so  tired  of  wearing  coats  too  tight 
and  sleeves  too  short  for  him  that  he  swallowed  down  the  law 
in  desperation  and  had  just  bought  a  bare  license.  He  was  a 
licensed  attorney,  without  a  penny,  or  a  client,  or  any  friends 
beyond  our  set;  and  he  was  bound  to  pay  interest  on  the 
purchase-money  and  the  cautionary  deposit  beside." 

"  He  used  to  make  me  feel  as  if  I  had  met  a  tiger  escaped 
from  the  Jardin  des  Plantes,"  said  Couture.  "He  was  lean 
and  red-haired,  his  eyes  were  the  color  of  Spanish  snuff,  and 
his  complexion  was  harsh.  He  looked  cold  and  phlegmatic. 
He  was  hard  upon  the  widow,  pitiless  to  the  orphan,  and  a 
terror  to  his  clerks ;  they  were  not  allowed  to  waste  a  minute. 
Learned,  crafty,  double-faced,  honey-tongued,  never  flying 
into  a  passion,  rancorous  in  his  judicial  way." 


THE   FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN.  820 

"But  there  is  goodness  in  him,"  cried  Finot ;  "he  is  de- 
voted to  his  friends.  The  first  thing  he  did  was  to  take 
Godeschal,  Mariette's  brother,  as  his  head-clerk." 

"At  Paris,"  said  Blondet,  "there  are  attorneys  of  two 
shades.  There  is  the  honest  man  attorney  ;  he  abides  within 
the  province  of  the  law,  pushes  on  his  cases,  neglects  no  one, 
never  runs  after  business,  gives  his  clients  his  honest  opinion, 
and  makes  them  compromise  on  doubtful  points — he  is  a  Der- 
ville,  in  short.  Then  there  is  the  starveling  attorney,  to  whom 
anything  seems  good  provided  that  he  is  sure  of  expenses ;  he 
will  set,  not  mountains  righting,  for  he  sells  them,  but  planets; 
he  will  work  to  make  the  worse  appear  the  better  cause,  and 
take  advantage  of  a  technical  error  to  win  the  day  for  a  rogue. 
If  one  of  these  fellows  tries  one  of  Maitre  Gonin's  tricks  once 
too  often,  the  guild  forces  him  to  sell  his  connection.  Des- 
roches,  our  friend  Desroches,  understood  the  full  resources  of 
a  trade  carried  on  in  a  beggarly  way  enough  by  poor  devils ; 
he  would  buy  up  causes  of  men  who  feared  to  lose  the  day ; 
he  plunged  into  chicanery  with  a  fixed  determination  to  make 
money  by  it.  He  was  right ;  he  did  his  business  very  honestly. 
He  found  influence  among  men  in  public  life  by  getting  them 
out  of  awkward  complications ;  there  was  our  dear  des  Lu- 
peaulx,  for  instance,  whose  position  was  so  deeply  com- 
promised. And  Desroches  stood  in  need  of  influence;  for, 
when  he  began,  he  was  anything  but  well  looked  on  at  the 
court,  and  he  who  took  so  much  trouble  to  rectify  the  errors 
of  his  clients  was  often  in  trouble  himself.  See  now,  Bixiou, 
to  go  back  to  the  subject— How  came  Desroches  to  be  in  the 
church?" 

"  '  D'Aldrigger  is  leaving  seven  or  eight  hundred  thousand 
francs,'  Taillefer  answered,  addressing  Desroches. 

"  '  Oh,  pooh,  there  is  only  one  man  who  knows  how  much 
they  are  worth,'  put  in  Werbrust,  a  friend  of  the  deceased. 

"'Who?' 

"  '  That  fat  rogue  Nucingen  ;  he  will  go  as  far  as  the  ceme- 


326  THE  FIRM   OF  NUCINGRN. 

tery;  d'Aldrigger  was  his  master  once,  and  out  of  gratitude 
he  put  the  old  man's  capital  into  his  business.' 

"  'The  widow  will  soon  feel  a  great  difference.' 

"  '  What  do  you  mean  ? ' 

"  '  Well,  d'Aldrigger  was  so  fond  of  his  wife.  Now,  don't 
laugh,  people  are  looking  at  us.' 

"  '  Look,  here  comes  du  Tillet ;  he  is  very  late.  The 
Epistle  is  just  beginning.' 

"  '  He  will  marry  the  eldest  girl  in  all  probability.' 

"  '  Is  it  possible  ? '  asked  Desroches  ;  '  why,  he  is  tied  more 
than  ever  to  Madame  Roguin.' 

"  'Tied — he  ?     You  do  not  know  him.' 

"'Do  you  know  how  Nucingen  and  du  Tillet  stand?' 
asked  Desroches. 

"'Like  this,'  said  Taillefer;  'Nucingen  is  just  the  man 
to  swallow  down  his  old  master's*  capital,  and  then  to  dis- 
gorge it.' 

"'Ugh!  ugh!'  coughed  Werbrust,  'these  churches  are 
confoundedly  damp ;  ugh  !  ugh  !  What  do  you  mean  by 
"disgorge  it?"  ' 

"  '  Well,  Nucingen  knows  that  du  Tillet  has  a  lot  of  money; 
he  wants  to  marry  him  to  Malvina ;  but  du  Tillet  is  shy  of 
Nucingen.  To  a  looker-on,  the  game  is  good  fun.' 

"'What!'  exclaimed  Werbrust,  'is  she  old  enough  to 
marry?  How  quickly  we  grow  old  !  ' 

"  '  Malvina  d'Aldrigger  is  quite  twenty  years  old,  my  dear 
fellow.  Old  d'Aldrigger  was  married  in  1800.  He  gave 
some  rather  fine  entertainments  in  Strasbourg  at  the  time  of 
his  wedding,  and  afterward  when  Malvina  was  born.  That 
was  in  1801  at  the  peace  of  Amiens,  and  here  are  we  in  the 
year  1823,  Daddy  Werbrust !  In  those  days  everything  was 
Ossianized  ;  he  called  his  daughter  Malvina.  Six  years  after- 
ward there  was  a  rage  for  chivalry,  "  Partant  pour  la  Syrie  " — 
a  pack  of  nonsense — and  he  christened  his  second  daughter 
*  See  "  Cesar  Birotteau." 


THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN.  327 

Isaure.     She   is  seventeen.     So  there  are   two  daughters  to 
marry.' 

'The  women  will  not  have  a  penny  left  in  ten  years' 
time,'  said  Werbrust,  speaking  to  Desroches  in  a  confidential 
tone. 

'  There  is  d'Aldrigger's  manservant,  the  old  fellow  bel- 
lowing away  at  the  back  of  the  church  ;  he  has  been  with 
them  since  the  two  young  ladies  were  children,  and  he  is 
capable  of  anything  to  keep  enough  together  for  them  to  live 
upon,'  said  Taillefer. 

' '  'Dies  ir<z  ! '  *  (from  the  minor  canons. )    'Dies  ilia  / '  (from 
the  choristers.) 

"  '  Good-day,  Werbrust '   (from  Taillefer),  '  the  Dies  ira 
puts  me  too  much  in  mind  of  my  poor  boy.' 

"  '  I  shall  go  too ;  it  is  too  damp  in  here,'  said  Werbrust. 
"'InfavMa.1 

"'A  few  centimes,  kind  gentlemen!'  (from  the  beggars 
at  the  door.) 

"  '  For  the  expenses  of  the  church  ! '  (from  the  beadle,  with 
a  rattling  clatter  of  the  money-box.) 
"  'Amen  '  (from  the  choristers.) 
"  '  What  did  he  die  of? '  (from  a  friend.) 
"  '  He  broke  a  bloodvessel  in  the  heel '    (from  an  inquisi- 
tive wag.) 

"  '  Who  is  dead  ? '  (from  a  passer-by.) 
"  '  The  President  de  Montesquieu  ! '  (from  a  relative.) 
"  The  sacristan  to  the  poor,  '  Get  away,  all  of  you  ;   the 
money  for  you   has  been   given    to  us ;    don't  ask  for  any 
more.'" 

"  Done  to  the  life  !  "  cried  Couture.  And  indeed  it  seemed 
to  us  that  we  heard  all  that  went  on  in  the  church.  Bixiou 
imitated  everything,  even  the  shuffling  sound  of  the  feet  of 
the  men  that  carried  the  coffin  over  the  stone  floor. 

"  There  are  poets  and  romancers  and  writers  that  say  many 
*  Day  of  Wrath  :  An  antiphonal  funeral  hymn. 


328  THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN. 

fine  things  about  Parisian  manners,"  continued  Bixiou,  "but 
that  is  what  really  happens  at  a  funeral.  Ninety-nine  out  of 
a  hundred  that  come  to  pay  their  respects  to  some  poor  devil 
departed  get  together  and  talk  business  or  pleasure  in  the 
middle  of  the  church.*  To  see  some  poor  little  touch  of  real 
sorrow,  you  need  an  impossible  combination  of  circumstances. 
And,  after  all,  is  there  such  a  thing  as  grief  without  a  thought 
of  self  in  it?" 

"Ugh!"  said  Blondet.  "Nothing  is  less  respected  than 
death  ;  is  it  that  there  is  nothing  less  respectable?  " 

"  It  is  so  common  !  "  resumed  Bixiou.  "  When  the  service 
was  over,  Nucingen  and  du  Tillet  went  to  the  graveside.  The 
old  manservant  walked ;  Nucingen  and  du  Tillet  were  put  at 
the  head  of  the  procession  of  mourning  coaches.  '  Goot,  mein 
goot  friend,'  said  Nucingen  as  they  turned  into  the  boulevard. 
'It  ees  a  goot  time  to  marry  Malfina;  you  vill  be  der  bro- 
dector  off  dat  boor  family  vat  ees  in  tears  ;  you  vill  haf  ein 
family,  a  home  off  your  own ;  you  vill  haf  a  house  ready  vur- 
nished,  und  Malfina  is  truly  ein  dreashure.' ' 

"  I  seem  to  hear  that  old  Robert  Macaire  of  a  Nucingen 
himself,"  said  Finot. 

"  '  A  charming  girl,'  said  Ferdinand  du  Tillet  in  a  cool,  un- 
enthusiastic  tone,"  Bixiou  continued. 

"Just  du  Tillet  himself  summed  up  in  a  word!"  cried 
Couture. 

"  'Those  that  do  not  know  her  may  think  her  plain,'  pur- 
sued du  Tillet,  'but  she  has  character,  I  admit.' 

"  '  Und  ein  herz,  dot  is  the  pest  of  die  pizness,  mein  dear 
poy;  she  vould  make  you  an  indelligent  und  defoted  vife. 
In  our  beastly  pizness,  nopody  cares  to  know  who  lifs  or  dies ; 
it  is  a  crate  plessing  gif  a  mann  kann  put  drust  in  his  vife's 
heart.  Mein  Telvine  prought  me  more  as  a  million,  as  you 

*It  may  be  noted  that  the  city  churches  are  without  permanent  seats; 
chairs  are  in  readiness  at  the  portals  and  are  carried  by  the  attendants  to 
the  position  desired. 


THE   FIRM   OF  NUCINGEN.  329 

know,  but  I  should  gladly  gif  her  for  Malfina  dot  haf  not  so 
pig  a  dot.' 

"  '  But  how  much  has  she  ? ' 

"  '  I  do  not  know  precisely ;  boot  she  haf  somdings.' 

"  '  Yes,  she  has  a  mother  with  a  great  liking  for  rose-color,' 
said  du  Tillet ;  and  with  that  epigram  he  cut  Nucingen's  diplo- 
matic efforts  short. 

"After  dinner  the  Baron  de  Nucingen  informed  Wilhel- 
mine  Adolphus  that  she  had  barely  four  hundred  thousand 
francs  deposited  with  him.  The  daughter  of  Adolphus  of 
Mannheim,  thus  reduced  to  an  income  of  twenty-four  thou- 
sand livres,  lost  herself  in  arithmetical  exercises  that  muddled 
her  wits. 

"  '  I  have  always  had  six  thousand  francs  for  our  dress  allow- 
ance/ she  said  to  Malvina.  'Why,  how  did  your  father  find 
money?  We  shall  have  nothing  now  with  twenty-four  thou- 
sand francs  ;  it  is  destitution  !  Oh  !  if  my  father  could  see 
me  so  come  down  in  the  world,  it  would  kill  him  if  he  were 
not  dead  already !  Poor  Wilhelmine  ! '  and  she  began  to 
cry. 

"Malvina,  puzzled  to  know  how  to  comfort  her  mother, 
represented  to  her  that  she  was  still  young  and  pretty,  that 
rose-color  still  became  her,  that  she  could  continue  to  go  to 
the  opera  and  the  Bouffons,  where  Mme.  de  Nucingen  had  a 
box.  And  so  with  visions  of  gayeties,  dances,  music,  pretty 
dresses,  and  social  success,  the  baroness  was  lulled  to  sleep 
and  pleasant  dreams  in  the  blue,  silk-curtained  bed  in  the 
charming  room  next  to  the  chamber  in  which  Jean-Baptiste, 
Baron  d'Aldrigger,  had  breathed  his  last  but  two  nights  ago. 

"  Here  in  a  few  words  is  the  baron's  history.  During  his 
lifetime  that  worthy  Alsacian  accumulated  about  three 
millions  of  francs.  In  1800,  at  the  age  of  thirty-six,  in  the 
apogee  of  a  fortune  made  during  the  Revolution,  he  made  a 
marriage  partly  of  ambition,  partly  of  inclination,  with  the 
heiress  of  the  family  of  Adolphus  of  Mannheim.  Wilhel- 


330  THE   FIRM  OF  NUCINGEK. 

mine,  being  the  idol  of  her  whole  family,  naturally  inherited 
their  wealth  after  some  ten  years.  Next,  d'Aldrigger's  fortune 
being  doubled,  he  was  transformed  into  a  baron  by  his 
majesty,  Emperor  and  King,  and  forthwith  became  a  fanatical 
admirer  of  the  great  man  to  whom  he  owed  his  title.  Where- 
fore, between  1814  and  1815  he  ruined  himself  by  a  too 
serious  belief  in  the  sun  of  Austerlitz.  Honest  Alsacian  as 
he  was,  he  did  not  suspend  payment,  nor  did  he  give  his 
creditors  shares  in  doubtful  concerns  by  way  of  settlement. 
He  paid  everything  over  the  counter,  and  then  retired  from 
business,  thoroughly  deserving  Nucingen's  comment  on  his 
behavior — 'Honest  but  stoobid.' 

"All  claims  satisfied,  there  remained  to  him  five  hundred 
thousand  francs  and  certain  receipts  for  sums  advanced  to  that 
Imperial  Government,  which  had  ceased  to  exist.  '  See  vat 
komms  of  too  much  pelief  in  Nappolion,'  said  he,  when  he 
had  realized  all  his  capital. 

"  When  you  have  been  one  of  the  leading  men  in  a  place, 
how  are  you  to  remain  in  it  when  your  estate  has  dwindled  ? 
D'Aldrigger,  like  all  ruined  provincials,  removed  to  Paris, 
there  intrepidly  wore  the  tricolor  braces  embroidered  with 
Imperial  eagles,  and  lived  entirely  in  Bonapartist  circles.  His 
capital  he  handed  over  to  Nucingen,  who  gave  him  eight  per 
cent,  upon  it,  and  took  over  the  loans  to  the  Imperial  Gov- 
ernment at  a  mere  sixty  per  cent,  of  reduction  ;  wherefore 
d'Aldrigger  squeezed  Nucingen's  hand  and  said,  '  I  knew  dot 
in  you  I  should  find  de  heart  of  ein  Elzacien.  (Nucingen 
was  paid  in  full  through  our  friend  des  Lupeaulx.)  Well 
fleeced  as  d'Aldrigger  had  been,  he  still  possessed  an  in- 
come of  forty-four  thousand  francs ;  but  his  mortification  was 
further  complicated  by  the  spleen  which  lies  in  wait  for  the 
business  man  so  soon  as  he  retires  from  business.  He  set 
himself,  noble  heart,  to  sacrifice  himself  to  his  wife,  now  that 
her  fortune  was  lost,  that  fortune  of  which  she  had  allowed 
herself  to  be  despoiled  so  easily,  after  the  manner  of  a  girl 


THE   FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN.  331 

entirely  ignorant  of  money  matters.  Mme.  d'Aldrigger  ac- 
cordingly missed  not  a  single  pleasure  to  which  she  had  been 
accustomed ;  any  void  caused  by  the  loss  of  Strasbourg  ac- 
quaintances was  speedily  filled,  and  more  than  filled,  with 
Paris  gayeties.  Even  then,  as  now,  the  Nucingens  lived  at 
the  higher  end  of  financial  society,  and  the  Baron  de  Nucingen 
made  it  a  point  of  honor  to  treat  the  honest  banker  well.  His 
disinterested  virtue  looked  well  in  the  Nucingen  salon. 

"Every  winter  dipped  into  d'Aldrigger's  principal,  but  he 
did  not  venture  to  remonstrate  with  his  pearl  of  a  Wilhelmine. 
His  was  the  most  ingenuous  unintelligent  tenderness  in  the 
world.  A  good  man,  but  a  stupid  one  !  '  What  will  become 
of  them  when  I  am  gone  ? '  he  said,  as  he  lay  dying ;  and  when 
he  was  left  alone  for  a  moment  with  Wirth,  his  old  manservant, 
he  struggled  for  breath  to  bid  him  take  care  of  his  mistress  and 
her  two  daughters,  as  if  the  one  reasonable  being  in  the  house 
were  this  Alsacian  Caleb  Balderstone. 

'•'Three  years  afterward,  in  1826,  Isaure  was  twenty  years 
old,  and  Malvina  still  unmarried.  Malvina  had  gone  into 
society,  and  in  course  of  time  discovered  for  herself  how  super- 
ficial their  friendships  were,  how  accurately  every  one  was 
weighed  and  appraised.  Like  most  girls  that  have  been  'well 
brought  up/  as  we  say,  Malvina  had  no  idea  of  the  mechanism 
of  life,  of  the  importance  of  money,  of  the  difficulty  of 
obtaining  it,  of  the  prices  of  things.  And  so,  for  six  years, 
every  lesson  that  she  had  learned  had  been  a  painful  one 
for  her. 

"  D'Aldrigger's  four  hundred  thousand  francs  were  carried 
to  the  credit  of  the  baroness'  account  with  the  firm  of  Nu- 
cingen (she  was  her  husband's  creditor  for  twelve  hundred 
thousand  francs  under  her  marriage-settlement),  and  when  m 
any  difficulty  the  Shepherdess  of  the  Alps  dipped  into  her 
capital  as  though  it  were  inexhaustible. 

"When  our  pigeon  first  advanced  toward  his  dove,  Nucin- 
gen, knowing  the  baroness'  character,  must  have  spoken 


332  THE  FIRM  OF  NUC1NGEN, 

plainly  to  Malvina  on  the  financial  position.  At  that  time 
three  hundred  thousand  francs  were  left ;  the  income  of 
twenty-four  thousand  francs  was  reduced  to  eighteen  thou- 
sand. Wirth  had  kept  up  this  state  of  things  for  three  years  ! 
After  that  confidential  interview,  Malvina  put  down  the  car- 
riage, sold  the  horses,  and  dismissed  the  coachman,  without 
her  mother's  knowledge.  The  furniture,  now  ten  years  old, 
could  not  be  renewed,  but  it  all  faded  together,  and  for  those 
that  like  harmony  the  effect  was  not  half  bad.  The  baroness 
herself,  that  so  well-preserved  flower,  began  to  look  like  the 
last  solitary  frost-touched  rose  on  a  November  bush.  I  myself 
watched  the  slow  decline  of  luxury  by  quarter-tones  and  semi- 
tones !  Frightful,  upon  my  honor !  It  was  my  last  trouble 
of  the  kind ;  afterward  I  said  to  myself,  '  It  is  silly  to  care  so 
much  about  other  people.'  But  while  I  was  in  the  civil  ser- 
vice, I  was  fool  enough  to  take  a  personal  interest  in  the 
houses  where  I  dined  ;  I  used  to  stand  up  for  them ;  I  would 
say  no  ill  of  them  myself;  I — oh  !  I  was  a  child. 

"  Well,  when  the  erstwhile  pearl's  daughter  put  the  state 
of  the  case  before  her,  '  Oh,  my  poor  children,'  cried  she, 
'  who  will  make  my  dresses  now  ?  I  cannot  afford  new  bon- 
nets; I  cannot  see  visitors  here  nor  go  out.'  Now  by  what 
token  do  you  know  that  a  man  is  in  love?"  said  Bixiou, 
interrupting  himself.  "  The  question  is,  whether  Beaudenord 
was  genuinely  in  love  with  the  fair-haired  girl." 

"He  neglects  his  interests,"  said  Couture. 

"  He  changes  his  shirt  three  times  a  day,"  from  Finot. 

"There  is  another  question  to  settle  first,"  opined  Blondet; 
"a  man  of  more  than  ordinary  ability,  can  he,  and  ought  he, 
to  fall  in  love?" 

"My  friends,"  resumed  Bixiou,  with  a  sentimental  air, 
"  there  is  a  kind  of  man  who,  when  he  feels  that  he  is  in  peril 
of  falling  in  love,  will  snap  his  fingers  or  fling  away  his  cigar 
(as  the  case  may  be)  with  a  '  Pooh  !  there  are  other  women  in 
the  world.'  Beware  of  that  man  for  a  dangerous  reptile. 


THE   FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN. 

Still,  the  Government  may  employ  that  citizen  somewhere  in 
the  foreign  office.  Blondet,  I  call  your  attention  to  the  fact 
that  this  Godcfroid  had  thrown  up  diplomacy." 

"Well,  he  was  absorbed,"  said  Blondet.  "  Love  gives  the 
fool  his  one  chance  of  growing  great." 

"Blondet,  Blondet,  how  is  it  that  we  are  so  poor?"  cried 
Bixiou. 

"And  why  is  Finot  so  rich?"  returned  Blondet.  "  I  will 
tell  you  how  it  is ;  there,  my  son,  we  understand  each  other. 
Come,  here  is  Finot  filling  up  my  glass  as  if  I  had  carried  in 
his  firewood.  At  the  end  of  dinner  one  ought  to  sip  one's 
wine  slowly.  Well  ?  " 

"  Thou  hast  said.  The  absorbed  Godefroid  became  fully 
acquainted  with  the  family — the  tall  Malvina,  the  frivolous 
baroness,  and  the  little  lady  of  the  dance.  He  became  a 
servant  after  the  most  conscientious  and  restricted  fashion. 
He  was  not  scared  away  by  the  cadaverous  remains  of  opu- 
lence ;  not  he  !  by  degrees  he  became  accustomed  to  the 
threadbare  condition  of  things.  It  never  struck  the  young 
man  that  the  green  silk  damask  and  white  ornaments  in  the 
drawing-room  were  shabby,  spotted,  and  old-fashioned,  and 
that  the  room  needed  refurnishing.  The  curtains,  the  tea- 
table,  the  knick-knacks  on  the  chimney-piece,  the  rococo 
chandelier,  the  Eastern  carpet  with  the  pile  worn  down  to  the 
thread,  the  pianoforte,  the  little  flowered  china  cups,  the 
fringed  serviettes  so  full  of  holes  that  they  looked  like  open 
work  in  the  Spanish  fashion,  the  green  sitting-room  with  the 
baroness'  blue  bedroom  beyond  it — it  was  all  sacred,  all 
dear  to  him.  It  is  only  your  stupid  woman  with  the  brilliant 
beauty  that  throws  heart,  brain,  and  soul  into  the  shade,  who 
can  inspire  forgetfulness  like  this;  a  clever  woman  never 
abuses  her  advantages  ;  she  must  be  small-natured  and  silly 
to  gain  such  a  hold  upon  a  man.  Beaudenord  actually  loved 
the  solemn  old  Wirth — he  has  told  me  so  himself! 

"That  old  rogue  regarded  his  future  master  with  the  awe 


334  THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEK. 

which  a  good  Catholic  feels  for  the  eucharist.  Honest  Wirth 
was  a  kind  of  Gaspsrd,  a  beer-drinking  German  sheathing  his 
cunning  in  good-nature,  much  as  a  cardinal  in  the  Middle 
Ages  kept  his  dagger  up  his  sleeve.  Wirth  saw  a  husband  for 
Isaure,  and  accordingly  proceeded  to  surround  Goclefroid  with 
the  mazy  circumlocutions  of  his  Alsacian  geniality,  that  most 
adhesive  of  all  known  varieties  of  bird-lime. 

"  Mme.  d'Aldrigger  was  radically  '  improper.'  She  thought 
love  the  most  natural  thing  imaginable.  When  Isaure  and 
Malvina  went  out  together  to  the  Champs  Elysees  or  the 
Tuileries,  where  they  were  sure  to  meet  the  young  men  of  their 
set,  she  would  simply  say,  'A  pleasant  time  to  you,  dear  girls.' 
Their  friends  among  men,  the  only  persons  who  might  have 
slandered  the  sisters,  championed  them;  for  the  extraordinary 
liberty  permitted  in  the  d'Aldriggers'  salon  made  it  unique 
in  Paris.  Vast  wealth  would  scarcely  have  procured  such 
evenings,  the  talk  was  good  on  any  subject ;  dress  was  not  in- 
sisted upon  ;  you  felt  so  much  at  home  there  that  you  could 
ask  for  supper.  The  sisters  corresponded  as  they  pleased,  and 
quietly  read  their  letters  by  their  mother's  side  ;  it  never  oc- 
curred to  the  baroness  to  interfere  in  any  way  ;  the  adorable 
woman  gave  the  girls  the  full  benefits  of  her  selfishness,  and  in 
a  certain  sense  selfish  persons  are  the  easiest  to  live  with  ;  they 
hate  trouble,  and  therefore  do  not  trouble  other  people ;  they 
never  beset  the  lives  of  their  fellow-creatures  with  thorny 
advice  and  captious  fault-finding ;  nor  do  they  torment  you 
with  the  waspish  solicitude  of  excessive  affection  that  must 
know  all  things  and  rule  all  things " 

"  This  comes  home,"  said  Blondet,  "but,  my  dear  fellow, 
this  is  not  telling  a  story,  this  is  blague  (fudge) " 

"  Blondet,  if  you  were  not  tipsy,  I  should  really  feel  hurt ! 
He  is  the  one  serious  literary  character  among  us ;  for  his 
benefit,  I  honor  you  by  treating  you  like  men  of  taste,  I  am 
distilling  my  tale  for  you.  and  now  he  criticises  me  !  There 
is  no  greater  proof  of  intellectual  sterility,  my  friends,  than 


THE   FIRM  OF  NUCIXGEN.  335 

the  piling  up  of  facts.  « Le  Misanthrope,'  that  supreme 
comedy,  shows  us  that  art  consists  in  the  power  of  building  a 
palace  on  a  needle's  point.  The  gist  of  my  idea  is  in  the  fairy 
wand  which  can  turn  the  Desert  into  an  Interlaken  in  ten 
seconds  (precisely  the  time  required  to  empty  this  glass). 
Would  you  rather  that  I  fired  a  story  off  at  you  like  a  cannon- 
ball,  or  a  commander-iii-chief 's  report  ?  We  chat  and  laugh  ; 
and  this  journalist,  a  bibliophobe  when  sober,  expects  me,  for- 
sooth, when  he  is  drunk,  to  teach  my  tongue  to  move  at  the 
dull  jog-trot  of  a  printed  book."  (Here  he  affected  to  weep.) 
"Woe  unto  the  French  imagination  when  men  fain  would 
blunt  the  needle-points  of  her  pleasant  humor!  Dies  irce  ! 
Let  us  weep  for  Candide.  Long  live  the  '  Kritik  of  Pure 
Reason,'  'La  Symbolique,'  and  the  systems  in  five  closely 
packed  volumes,  printed  by  Germans,  who  little  suspect  that 
the  gist  of  the  matter  has  been  known  in  Paris  since  1750,  and 
crystallized  in  a  few  trenchant  words — the  diamonds  of  our 
national  thought.  Blondet  is  driving  a  hearse  to  his  own 
suicide  ;  Blondet,  forsooth  !  who  manufactures  newspaper  ac- 
counts of  the  last  words  of  all  the  great  men  that  die  without 
saying  anything  !  " 

"Come,  get  on,"  put  in  Finot. 

"  It  was  my  intention  to  explain  to  you  in  what  the  happiness 
of  a  man  consists  when  he  is  not  a  shareholder  (out  of  compli- 
ment to  Couture).  Well,  now,  do  you  not  see  at  what  a  price 
Godefroid  secured  the  greatest  happiness  of  a  young  man's 
dream?  He  was  trying  to  understand  Isaure,  by  way  of 
making  sure  that  she  should  understand  him.  Things  which 
comprehend  one  another  must  needs  be  similar.  Infinity  and 
Nothingness,  for  instance,  are  like ;  everything  that  lies  be- 
tween the  two  is  like  neither.  Nothingness  is  stupidity; 
genius,  Infinity.  The  lovers  wrote  each  other  the  stupidest 
letters  imaginable,  putting  down  various  expressions  then  in 
fashion  upon  bits  of  scented  paper:  'Angel!  ^Eolian  harp! 
with  thee  I  shall  be  complete  !  There  is  a  heart  in  my  man's 


836  THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN. 

breast !  Weak  woman,  poor  me  ! '  all  the  latest  heart-frippery. 
It  was  Godefroid's  wont  to  stay  in  a  drawing-room  for  a  bare 
ten  minutes ;  he  talked  without  any  pretension  to  the  women 
in  it,  and  at  those  times  they  thought  him  very  clever.  In 
short,  judge  of  his  absorption  ;  Joby,  his  horses  and  carriages, 
became  secondary  interests  in  his  life.  He  was  never  happy 
except  in  the  depths  of  a  snug  settee  opposite  the  baroness, 
by  the  dark-green  porphyry  chimney-piece,  watching  Isaure, 
taking  tea,  and  chatting  with  the  little  circle  of  friends  that 
dropped  in  every  evening  between  eleven  and  twelve  in  the 
Rue  Joubert.  You  could  play  bouillotte  there  safely.  (I 
always  won.)  Isaure  sat  with  one  little  foot  thrust  out  in  its 
black  satin  shoe;  Godefroid  would  gaze  and  gaze,  and  stay 
till  every  one  else  was  gone,  then  say,  '  Give  me  your  shoe  ! ' 
and  Isaure  would  put  her  little  foot  on  a  chair  and  take  it  off 
and  give  it  to  him,  with  a  glance,  one  of  those  glances  that — 
in  short,  you  understand. 

"At  length  Godefroid  discovered  a  great  mystery  in  Mal- 
vina.  Whenever  du  Tillet  knocked  at  the  door,  the  live  red 
that  colored  Malvina' s  face  said  '  Ferdinand  ! '  When  the 
poor  girl's  eyes  fell  on  that  two-footed  tiger,  they  lighted  up 
like  a  brasier  fanned  by  a  current  of  air.  When  Ferdinand 
drew  her  away  to  the  window  or  a  side-table,  she  betrayed 
her  secret  infinite  joy.  It  is  a  rare  and  beautiful  thing  to  see 
a  woman  so  much  in  love  that  she  loses  her  cunning  to  be 
strange,  and  you  can  read  her  heart ;  as  rare  (dear  me  !)  in 
Paris  as  the  Singing  Flower  in  the  Indies.  But  in  spite  of  a 
friendship  dating  from  the  d'Aldriggers'  first  appearance  at 
the  Nucingens',  Ferdinand  did  not  marry  Malvina.  Our 
ferocious  friend  was  not  apparently  jealous  of  Desroches,  who 
paid  assiduous  court  to  the  young  lady ;  Desroches  wanted  to 
pay  off  the  rest  of  the  purchase-money  due  for  his  connection  ; 
Malvina  could  not  well  have  less  than  fifty  thousand  crowns, 
he  thought,  and  so  the  lawyer  was  fain  to  play  the  lover. 
Malvina,  deeply  humiliated  as  she  was  by  du  Tillet's  careless- 


ISAURE    WOULD    PUT    HER    LITTLE    FOOT    ON    A    CHAIR. 


THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEff.  337 

ness,  loved  him  too  well  to  shut  the  door  upon  him.  With 
her,  an  enthusiastic,  highly  wrought,  sensitive  girl,  love  some- 
times got  the  better  of  pride,  and  pride  again  overcame 
wounded  love.  Our  friend  Ferdinand,  cool  and  self-possessed, 
accepted  her  tenderness,  and  breathed  the  atmosphere  with 
the  quiet  enjoyment  of  a  tiger  licking  the  blood  that  dyes  his 
throat.  He  would  come  to  make  sure  of  it  with  new  proofs ; 
he  never  allowed  two  days  to  pass  without  a  visit  to  the  Rue 
Joubert. 

"At  that  time  the  rascal  possessed  something  like  eighteen 
hundred  thousand  francs;  money  must  have  weighed  very 
little  with  him  in  the  question  of  marriage ;  and  he  had  not 
merely  been  proof  against  Malvina,  he  had  resisted  the  Barons 
de  Nucingen  and  de  Rastignac ;  though  both  of  them  had  set 
him  galloping  at  the  rate  or  seventy-five  leagues  a  day,  with 
outriders,  regardless  of  expense,  through  mazes  of  their  cun- 
ning devices — and  with  never  a  clue  of  thread. 

"  Godefroid  could  not  refrain  from  saying  a  word  to  his 
future  sister-in-law  as  to  her  ridiculous  position  between  a 
banker  and  an  attorney. 

"  '  You  mean  to  read  me  a  lecture  on  the  subject  of  Ferdi- 
nand,' she  said  frankly,  'to  know  the  secret  between  us. 
Dear  Godefroid,  never  mention  this  again.  Ferdinand's  birth, 
antecedents,  and  fortune  count  for  nothing  in  this,  so  you  may 
think  it  is  something  extraordinary.'  A  few  days  afterward, 
however,  Malvina  took  Godefroid  apart  to  say,  'I  do  not 
think  that  Desroches  is  sincere '  (such  is  the  instinct  of  love); 
'  he  would  like  to  marry  me,  and  he  is  paying  court  to  some 
tradesman's  daughter  as  well.  I  should  very  much  like  to 
know  whether  I  am  a  second  shift,  and  whether  marriage  is  a 
matter  of  money  with  him.'  The  fact  was  that  Desroches, 
deep  as  he  was,  could  not  make  out  du  Tillet,  and  was  afraid 
that  he  might  marry  Malvina.  So  the  fellow  had  secured  his 
retreat.  His  position  was  intolerable,  he  was  scarcely  paying 
his  expenses  and  interest  on  the  debt.  Women  understand 
22 


338  THE  FIRM  OF  NUC1NGEN. 

nothing  of  these  things ;  for  them,  love  is  always  a  million- 
aire." 

"  But  since  neither  du  Tillet  nor  Desroches  married  her, 
just  explain  Ferdinand's  motive,"  said  Finot. 

"Motive?"  repeated  Bixiou;  "why,  this.  General  Rule  : 
A  girl  that  has  once  given  away  her  slipper,  even  if  she  refused 
it  for  ten  years,  is  never  married  by  the  man  who " 

"Bosh!"  interrupted  Blondet,  "one  reason  for  loving  is 
the  fact  that  one  has  loved.  His  motive  ?  Here  it  is. 
General  Rule :  Do  not  marry  as  a  sergeant  when  some  day 
you  may  be  Duke  of  Dantzig  and  Marshal  of  France.  Now, 
see  what  a  match  du  Tillet  has  made  since  then.  He  married 
one  of  the  Comte  de  Granville's  daughters,  into  one  of  the 
oldest  families  in  the  French  magistracy." 

"Desroches'  mother  had  a  friend,  a  druggist's  wife,"  con- 
tinued Bixiou.  "  Said  druggist  had  retired  with  a  fat  fortune. 
These  druggist  folk  have  absurdly  crude  notions ;  by  way  of 
giving  his  daughter  a  good  education,  he  had  sent  her  to  a 
boarding-school  !  Well,  Matifat  meant  the  girl  to  marry  well, 
on  the  strength  of  two  hundred  thousand  francs,  good  hard 
coin  with  no  scent  of  drugs  about  it." 

"  Florine's  Matifat  ?  "  asked  Blondet. 

"Well,  yes.  Lousteau's  Matifat;  ours,  in  fact.  The 
Matifats,  even  then  lost  to  us,  had  gone  to  live  in  the  Rue  du 
Cherche-Midi,  as  far  as  may  be  from  the  Rue  des  Lombards, 
where  their  money  was  made.  For  my  own  part,  I  had  culti- 
vated those  Matifats.  While  I  served  my  time  in  the  galleys 
of  the  law,  when  I  was  cooped  up  for  eight  hours  out  of  the 
twenty-four  with  nincompoops  of  the  first  water,  I  saw  queer 
characters  enough  to  convince  myself  that  all  is  not  dead- 
level  even  in  obscure  places,  and  that  in  the  flattest  inanity 
you  may  chance  upon  an  angle.  Yes,  dear  boy,  such  and 
such  a  philistine  is  to  such  another  as  Rafael  is  to  Natoire. 

"Madame  Desroches,  the  widowed  mother,  had  long  ago 
planned  this  marriage  for  her  son,  in  spite  of  a  tremendous 


THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN.  339 

obstacle  which  took  the  shape  of  one  Cochin,  Matifat's 
partner's  son,  a  young  clerk  in  the  audit  department.  M. 
and  Mme.  Matifat  were  of  the  opinion  that  an  attorney's 
position  '  gave  some  guarantee  for  a  wife's  happiness,'  to  use 
their  own  expression  ;  and  as  for  Desroches,  he  was  prepared  to 
fail  in  with  his  mother's  views  in  case  he  could  do  no  better 
for  himself.  Wherefore,  he  kept  up  his  acquaintance  with  the 
druggists  in  the  Rue  du  Cherche-Midi. 

' '  To  put  another  kind  of  happiness  before  you,  you  should 
have  a  description  of  these  storekeepers,  male  and  female. 
They  rejoiced  in  the  possession  of  a  handsome  first-floor  and 
a  strip  of  garden  ;  for  amusement,  they  watched  a  little  squirt 
of  water,  no  bigger  than  a  wheat-stalk,  perpetually  rising  and 
falling  upon  a  small,  round  freestone  slab  in  the  middle  of  a 
basin  some  six  feet  across  ;  they  would  rise  early  of  a  morning 
to  see  if  the  plants  in  the  garden  had  grown  in  the  night; 
they  had  nothing  to  do,  they  were  restless,  they  dressed  for 
the  sake  of  dressing,  bored  themselves  at  the  theatre,  and 
were  for  ever  going  to  and  fro  between  Paris  and  Luzarches, 
where  they  had  a  country  house.  I  have  dined  there. 

"  Once  they  tried  to  quiz  me,  Blondet.  I  told  them  a 
long-winded  story  that  lasted  from  nine  o'clock  till  midnight, 
one  tale  inside  another.  I  had  just  brought  my  twenty-ninth 
personage  upon  the  scene  (the  newspapers  have  plagiarized 
with  their  '  continued  in  our  next '),  when  old  Matifat,  who 
as  host  still  held  out,  snored  like  the  rest,  after  blinking  for 
five  minutes.  Next  day  they  all  complimented  me  upon  the 
ending  of  my  tale  ! 

"  These  tradespeople's  society  consisted  of  M.  and  Mme. 
Cochin,  Mme.  Desroches,  and  a  young  Popinot,  still  in  the 
drug  business,  who  used  to  bring  them  news  of  the  Rue  des 
Lombards.  (You  know  him,  Finot.)  Mme.  Matifat  loved 
the  arts;  she  bought  lithographs,  chromo-lithographs,  and 
colored  prints— all  the  cheapest  things  she  could  lay  her  hands 
on.  The  Sieur  Matifat  amused  himself  by  looking  into  new 


340  THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN. 

business  speculations,  investing  a  little  capital  now  and  again 
for  the  sake  of  the  excitement.  Florine  had  cured  him  of  his 
taste  for  the  Regency  style  of  thing.  One  saying  of  his  will 
give  you  some  idea  of  the  depths  in  my  Matifat.  'Art  thou 
going  to  bed,  my  nieces  ? '  he  used  to  say  when  he  wished 
them  good-night,  because  (as  he  explained)  he  was  afraid  of 
hurting  their  feelings  with  the  more  formal  '  you.' 

"  The  daughter  was  a  girl  with  no  manner  at  all.  She 
looked  rather  like  a  superior  sort  of  housemaid.  She  could 
get  through  a  sonata,  she  wrote  a  pretty  English  hand,  knew 
French  grammar  and  orthography — a  complete  commercial 
education,  in  short.  She  was  impatient  enough  to  be  married 
and  leave  the  paternal  roof,  finding  it  as  dull  at  home  as  a 
lieutenant  finds  the  night-watch  at  sea ;  at  the  same  time,  it 
should  be  said  that  her  watch  lasted  through  the  whole  twenty- 
four  hours.  Desroches  or  Cochin  junior,  a  notary  or  a  life- 
guardsman,  or  a  sham  English  lord — any  husband  would  have 
suited  her.  As  she  so  obviously  knew  nothing  of  life,  I  took 
pity  upon  her,  I  determined  to  reveal  the  great  secret  of  it. 
But,  pooh  !  the  Matifats  shut  their  doors  on  me.  The  bour- 
geois and  I  shall  never  understand  each  other." 

"  She  married  General  Gouraud,"  said  Finot. 

"  In  forty-eight  hours,  Godefroid  de  Beaudenord,  late  of 
the  diplomatic  corps,  saw  through  the  Matifats  and  their 
nefarious  designs,"  resumed  Bixiou.  "  Raslignac  happened 
to  be  chatting  with  the  frivolous  baroness  when  Godefroid 
came  in  to  give  his  report  to  Malvina.  A  word  here  and 
there  reached  his  ear ;  he  guessed  the  matter  on  foot,  more 
particularly  from  Malvina's  look  of  satisfaction  that  it  was  as 
she  had  suspected.  Then  Rastignac  actually  stopped  on  till 
two  o'clock  in  the  morning.  And  yet  there  are  those  that 
call  him  selfish  !  Beaudenord  took  his  departure  when  the 
baroness  went  to  bed. 

"  As  soon  as  Rastignac  was  left  alone  with  Malvina,  he 
spoke  in  a  quiet,  fatherly,  good-humored  fashion  :  '  Dear  child, 


THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN.  341 

please  to  bear  in  mind  that  a  poor  fellow,  heavy  with  sleep, 
has  been  drinking  tea  to  keep  himself  awake  till  two  o'clock 
in  the  morning,  all  for  a  chance  of  saying  a  solemn  word  of 
advice  to  you — Marry!  Do  not  be  too  particular;  do  not 
brood  over  your  feelings ;  never  mind  the  sordid  schemes  of 
men  that  have  one  foot  here  and  another  in  the  Matifats' 
house ;  do  not  stop  to  think  at  all :  Marry !  When  a  girl 
marries,  it  means  that  the  man  whom  she  marries  undertakes 
to  maintain  her  in  a  more  or  less  good  position  in  life,  and  at 
any  rate  her  comfort  is  assured.  I  know  the  world.  Girls, 
mammas,  and  grandmammas  are  all  of  them  hypocrites  when 
they  fly  off  into  sentiment  over  a  question  of  marriage.  No- 
body really  thinks  of  anything  but  a  good  position.  If  a 
mother  marries  her  daughter  well,  she  says  that  she  has  made 
an  excellent  bargain.'  Here  Rastignac  unfolded  his  theory  of 
marriage,  which  to  his  way  of  thinking  is  a  business  arrange- 
ment, with  a  view  to  making  life  tolerable  ;  and  ended  up 
with,  '  I  do  not  ask  to  know  your  secret,  Malvina ;  I  know 
it  already.  Men  talk  things  over  among  themselves,  just  as 
you  women  talk  after  you  leave  the  dinner-table.  This  is  all 
I  have  to  say :  Marry.  If  you  do  not,  remember  that  I  begged 
you  to  marry,  here,  in  this  room,  this  evening  !  ' 

"There  was  a  certain  ring  in  Rastignac's  voice  which  com- 
pelled, not  attention,  but  reflection.  There  was  something 
startling  in  his  insistence ;  something  that  went,  as  Rastignac 
meant  that  it  should,  to  the  quick  of  Malvina's  intelligence. 
She  thought  over  the  counsel  again  next  day,  and  vainly  asked 
herself  why  it  had  been  given." 

Couture  broke  in.  "  In  all  these  tops  that  you  have  set 
spinning,  I  see  nothing  at  all  like  the  beginnings  of  Rastig- 
nac's fortune, ' '  said  he.  ' '  You  apparently  take  us  for  Matifats 
multiplied  by  half-a-dozen  bottles  of  champagne." 

"  We  are  just  coming  to  it,"  returned  Bixiou.  "  You  have 
followed  the  course  of  all  the  rivulets  which  make  up  that  forty 
thousand  livres  a  year  which  so  many  people  envy.  By  this 


342  THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN. 

time  Rastignac  held  the  threads  of  all  these  lives  in  his 
hand." 

"  Desroches,  the  Matifats,  Beaudenord,  the  d'Aldriggers 
and  d'Aiglemont?  " 

"Yes,  and  a  hundred  others,"  assented  Bixiou. 

"  Come  now,  how?  "  cried  Finot.  "  I  know  a  few  things, 
but  I  cannot  see  a  glimpse  of  an  answer  to  this  riddle." 

"Blondet  has  roughly  given  you  the  account  of  Nucingen's 
first  two  suspensions  of  payment ;  now  for  the  third,  with  full 
details.  After  the  peace  of  1815,  Nucingen  grasped  an  idea 
which  some  of  us  only  fully  understood  later,  to  wit,  that 
capital  is  a  power  only  when  you  are  very  much  richer  than 
other  people.  In  his  own  mind,  he  was  jealous  of  the  Roths- 
childs. He  had  five  millions  of  francs,  he  wanted  ten.  He 
knew  a  way  to  make  thirty  millions  with  ten,  while  with  five 
he  could  only  make  fifteen.  So  he  made  up  his  mind  to 
operate  a  third  suspension  of  payment.  About  that  time,  the 
great  man  hit  on  the  idea  of  indemnifying  his  creditors  with 
paper  of  purely  fictitious  value  and  keeping  their  coin.  On 
the  market,  a  great  idea  of  this  sort  is  not  expressed  in  pre- 
cisely this  cut-and-dried  way.  Such  an  arrangement  consists 
in  giving  a  lot  of  grown-up  children  a  small  pie  in  exchange 
for  a  gold-piece ;  and,  like  children  of  a  smaller  growth,  they 
prefer  the  pie  to  the  gold-piece,  not  suspecting  that  they  might 
have  a  couple  of  hundred  pies  for  it." 

"  What  is  all  this  about,  Bixiou?"  cried  Couture.  "Noth- 
ing more  bond,  fide.  Not  a  week  passes  but  pies  are  offered  to 
the  public  for  a  louis.  But  who  compels  the  public  to  take 
them?  Are  they  not  perfectly  free  to  make  inquiries? " 

"You  would  rather  have  it  made  compulsory  to  take  up 
shares,  would  you?"  asked  Blondet. 

"No,"  said  Finot.     "Where  would  the  talent  come  in?" 

"Very  good  for  Finot." 

"  Who  put  him  up  to  it?  "  asked  Couture. 

"The  fact  was,"  continued  Bixiou,   "that    Nucingen  had 


THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN.  3-3 

twice  had  the  luck  to  present  the  public  (quite  unintentionally) 
with  a  pie  that  turned  out  to  be  worth  more  than  the  money 
he  received  for  it.  That  unlucky  good-luck  gave  him  qualms 
of  conscience.  A  course  of  such  luck  is  fatal  to  a  man  in  the 
long  run.  This  time  he  meant  to  make  no  mistake  of  this 
sort ;  he  waited  ten  years  for  an  opportunity  of  issuing  nego- 
tiable securities  which  should  seem  on  the  face  of  it  to  be 
worth  something,  while  as  a  matter  of  fact " 

"  But  if  you  look  at  banking  in  that  light,"  broke  in  Cou- 
ture, "no  sort  of  business  would  be  possible.  More  than  one 
bon&  fide  banker,  backed  up  by  a  bond  fide  government,  has 
induced  the  hardest-headed  men  on  'Change  to  take  up  stock 
which  was  bound  to  fall  within  a  given  time.  You  have  seen 
better  than  that.  Have  you  not  seen  stock  created  with  the 
concurrence  of  a  government  to  pay  the  interest  upon  older 
stock,  so  as  to  keep  things  going  and  tide  over  the  difficulty? 
These  operations  were  more  or  less  like  Nucingen's  settle- 
ments." 

"  The  thing  may  look  queer  on  a  small  scale,"  said  Blondet, 
"  but  on  a  large  we  call  it  finance.  There  are  high-handed 
proceedings  criminal  between  man  and  man  that  amount  to 
nothing  when  spread  out  over  any  number  of  men,  much  as  a 
drop  of  prussic  acid  becomes  harmless  in  a  pail  of  water.  You 
take  a  man's  life,  you  are  guillotined.  But  if,  for  any  polit- 
ical conviction  whatsoever,  you  take  five  hundred  lives,  po- 
litical crimes  are  respected.  You  take  five  thousand  francs 
out  of  my  desk  ;  to  the  hulks  you  go.  But  with  a  sop  cleverly 
pushed  into  the  jaws  of  a  thousand  speculators,  you  can  cram 
the  stock  of  any  bankrupt  republic  or  monarchy  down  their 
throats  ;  even  if  the  loan  has  been  floated,  as  Couture  says,  to 
pay  the  interest  on  that  very  same  national  debt.  Nobody 
can  complain.  These  are  the  real  principles  of  the  present 
Golden  Age." 

"  When  the  stage  machinery  is  so  huge,"  continued  Bixiou, 
"a  good  many  puppets  are  required.  In  the  first  place, 


344  THE  FIRM   OF  NUCINGEX. 

Nucingen  had  purposely  and  with  his  eyes  open  invested  his 
five  millions  in  an  American  investment,  foreseeing  that  the 
profits  would  not  come  in  until  it  was  too  late.  The  firm 
of  Nucingen  deliberately  emptied  its  coffers.  Any  liquidation 
ought  to  be  brought  about  naturally.  In  deposits  belonging 
to  private  individuals  and  other  investments,  the  firm  pos- 
sessed about  six  millions  of  capital  altogether.  Among  those 
private  individuals  were  the  Baroness  d'Aldrigger  with  her 
three  hundred  thousand  francs,  Beaudenord  with  four  hundred 
thousand,  d'Aiglemont  with  a  million,  Matifat  with  three 
hundred  thousand,  Charles  Grandet  (who  married  Mile. 
d'Aubrion)  with  half  a  million,  and  so  forth,  and  so  forth. 

"  Now,  if  Nucingen  had  himself  brought  out  a  joint-stock 
company,  with  the  shares  of  which  he  proposed  to  indemnify 
his  creditors  after  more  or  less  ingenious  manoeuvring,  he 
might  perhaps  have  been  suspected.  He  set  about  it  more 
cunningly  than  that.  He  made  some  one  else  put  up  the 
machinery  that  was  to  play  the  part  of  the  Mississippi  scheme 
in  Law's  system.  Nucingen  can  make  the  longest-headed 
men  work  out  his  schemes  for  him  without  confiding  a  word 
to  them  ;  it  is  his  peculiar  talent.  Nucingen  just  let  fall  a 
hint  to  du  Tillet  of  the  pyramidal,  triumphant  notion  of  bring- 
ing out  a  joint-stock  enterprise  with  capital  sufficient  to  pay 
very  high  dividends  for  a  time.  Tried  for  the  first  time,  in 
days  when  noodles  with  capital  were  plentiful,  the  plan  was 
pretty  sure  to  end  in  a  run  upon  the  shares,  and  consequently 
in  a  profit  for  the  banker  that  issued  them.  You  must  re- 
member that  this  happened  in  1826. 

"  Du  Tillet,  struck  though  he  was  by  an  idea  both  pregnant 
and  ingenious,  naturally  bethought  himself  that  if  the  enter- 
prise failed,  the  blame  must  fall  upon  somebody.  For  which 
reason,  it  occurred  to  him  to  put  forward  a  figurehead  director 
in  charge  of  his  commercial  machinery.  At  this  day  you  all 
must  know  the  secret  of  the  firm  of  Claparon  and  Company, 
founded  by  du  Tillet,  one  of  the  finest  inventions " 


THE  FIRM  OF  NUCIXGEN.  345 

"Yes,"  said  Blondet,  "the  responsible  editor  in  business 
matters,  the  instigator,  and  scapegoat ;  but  we  know  better  than 
that  nowadays.  We  put,  '  Apply  at  the  offices  of  the  Corn- 
par.}-,  such-and-such  a  number,  such-and-such  a  street,'  where 
the  public  finds  a  staff  of  clerks  in  green  caps,  about  as  pleas- 
ing to  behold  as  broker's  men." 

"  Nucingen,"  pursued  Bixiou,  "  had  supported  the  firm  of 
Charles  Claparon  and  Company  with  all  his  credit.  There 
were  markets  in  which  you  mighty  safely  put  a  million  francs' 
worth  of  Claparon's  paper.  So  du  Tillet  proposed  to  bring 
his  firm  of  Claparon  to  the  fore.  So  said,  so  done.  In 
1825  the  shareholder  was  still  an  unsophisticated  being. 
There  was  no  such  thing  as  cash  lying  at  call.  Managing 
directors  did  not  pledge  themselves  not  to  put  their  own  shares 
upon  the  market ;  they  kept  no  deposit  with  the  Bank  of 
France ;  they  guaranteed  nothing.  They  did  not  even  conde- 
scend to  explain  to  shareholders  the  exact  limits  of  their 
liabilities  when  they  informed  them  that  the  directors,  in  their 
goodness,  refrained  from  asking  any  more  than  a  thousand,  or 
five  hundred,  or  even  two  hundred  and  fifty  francs.  It  was 
not  given  out  that  the  experiment  in  are publico  was  not  meant 
to  last  for  more  than  seven,  five,  or  even  three  years,  so  that 
shareholders  would  not  have  long  to  wait  for  the  catastrophe. 
It  was  in  the  childhood  of  the  art.  Promoters  did  not  even 
publish  the  gigantic  prospectuses  with  which  they  stimulate 
the  imagination,  and  at  the  same  time  make  demands  for 
money  of  all  and  sundry." 

"  That  only  comes  when  nobody  wishes  to  part  with 
money,"  said  Couture. 

"  In  short,  there  was  no  competition  in  investments,"  con- 
tinued Bixiou.  "  Papier-machd  manufacturers,  cotton  printers, 
zinc-rollers,  theatres,  and  newspapers  as  yet  did  not  hurl  them- 
selves like  hunting  dogs  upon  their  quarry— the  expiring  share- 
holder. '  Nice  things  in  shares,'  as  Couture  says,  put  thus 
artlessly  before  the  public,  and  backed  up  by  the  opinions  of 


346  THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN. 

experts  ('the  princes  of  science'),  were  negotiated  shame- 
facedly in  the  silence  and  shadow  of  the  Bourse.  Lynx-eyed 
speculators  used  to  execute  (financially  speaking)  the  aria 
Calumny  out  of  'The  Barber  of  Seville.'  They  went  about 
piano,  piano,  making  known  the  merits  of  the  concern  through 
the  medium  of  stock-exchange  gossip.  They  could  only  ex- 
ploit the  victim  in  his  own  house,  on  the  Bourse,  or  in  com- 
pany ;  so  they  reached  him  by  means  of  the  skillfully  created 
rumor  which  grew  till  it  reached  a  tutti  of  a  quotation  in  four 
figures " 

"And  as  we  can  say  anything  among  ourselves,"  said 
Couture,  "  I  will  go  back  to  the  last  subject." 

"  Vous  ttes  orfevre,  Monsieur  Josse  !  "*  cried  Finot. 

"  Finot  will  always  be  classic,  constitutional,  and  pedantic," 
commented  Blondet. 

"Yes,"  rejoined  Couture,  on  whose  account  Cerizet  had 
just  been  condemned  on  a  criminal  charge.  "  I  maintain 
that  the  new  way  is  infinitely  less  fraudulent,  less  ruinous, 
more  straightforward  than  the  old.  Publicity  means  time  for 
reflection  and  inquiry.  If  here  and  there  a  shareholder  is 
taken  in,  he  has  himself  to  blame,  nobody  sells  him  a  pig  in  a 
poke.  The  manufacturing  industry " 


"Ah  !  "  exclaimed  Bixiou,  "here  comes  industry- 


" — is  a  gainer  by  it,"  continued  Couture,  taking  no  notice 
of  the  interruption.  "  Every  government  that  meddles  with 
commerce  and  cannot  leave  it  free,  sets  about  an  expensive 
piece  of  folly ;  State  interference  ends  in  a  maximum  or  a 
monopoly.  To  my  thinking,  few  things  can  be  more  in  con- 
formity with  the  principles  of  free  trade  than  joint-stock  com- 
panies. State  interference  means  that  you  try  to  regulate  the 
relations  of  principal  and  interest,  which  is  absurd.  In  busi- 
ness, generally  speaking,  the  profits  are  in  proportion  to  the 
risks.  What  does  it  matter  to  the  State  how  money  is  set  cir- 
culating, provided  that  it  is  always  in  circulation  ?  What 
*  You  are  a  goldsmith,  Mister  Joss. 


THE  FIRM  OF  NVCINGEN.  347 

does  it  matter  who  is  rich  or  who  is  poor,  provided  that  there 
is  a  constant  quantity  of  rich  people  to  be  taxed  ?  Joint-stock 
companies,  limited  liability  companies,  every  sort  of  enterprise 
that  pays  a  dividend,  has  been  carried  on  for  twenty  years  in 
England,  commercially  the  first  country  in  the  world.  Noth- 
ing passes  unchallenged  there;  the  Houses  of  Parliament 
hatch  some  twelve  hundred  laws  every  session,  yet  no  mem- 
ber of  Parliament  has  ever  yet  raised  an  objection  to  the 
system " 

"A  cure  for  plethora  of  the  strong  box.  Purely  vegetable 
remedy,"  put  in  Bixiou,  " les  carottes"  (gambling  specula- 
tion). 

"Look  here!"  cried  Couture,  firing  up  at  this.  "You 
have  ten  thousand  francs.  You  invest  it  in  ten  shares  of  a 
thousand  francs  each  in  ten  different  enterprises.  You  are 
swindled  nine  times  out  of  the  ten — as  a  matter  of  fact  you  are 
not,  the  public  is  a  match  for  anybody,  but  say  that  you  are 
swindled,  and  only  one  affair  turns  out  well  (by  accident !  oh, 
granted  !  it  was  not  done  on  purpose — there,  chaff  away!). 
Very  well,  the  punter  that  has  the  sense  to  divide  up  his 
stakes  in  this  way  hits  on  a  splendid  investment,  like  those  did 
who  took  shares  in  the  Worstchin  mines.  Gentlemen,  let  us 
admit  among  ourselves  that  those  who  call  out  are  hypocrites, 
desperately  vexed  because  they  have  no  good  ideas  of  their  own, 
and  neither  power  to  advertise  nor  skill  to  exploit  a  business. 
You  will  not  have  long  to  wait  for  proof.  In  a  very  short  time 
you  will  see  the  aristocracy,  the  Court,  and  public  men  descend 
into  speculation  in  serried  columns  ;  you  will  see  that  their 
claws  are  longer,  their  morality  more  crooked  than  ours,  while 
they  have  not  our  good  points.  What  a  head  a  man  must 
have  if  he  has  to  found  a  business  in  times  when  the  share- 
holder is  as  covetous  and  keen  as  the  inventor  !  What  a  great 
magnetizer  must  he  be  that  can  create  a  Claparon  and  hit 
upon  expedients  never  tried  before.  Do  you  know  the  moral 
of  it  all  ?  Our  age  is  no  better  than  we  are;  we  live  in  an  era 


348  THE  FIRM  OF  NUClNGEff. 

of  greed  ;  no  one  troubles  himself  about  the  intrinsic  value  of 
a  thing  if  he  can  only  make  a  profit  on  it  by  selling  it  to  some- 
body else  ;  so  he  passes  it  on  to  his  neighbor.  The  share- 
holder that  thinks  he  sees  a  chance  of  making  money  is  just 
as  covetous  as  the  founder  that  offers  him  the  opportunity  of 
making  it." 

"Isn't  he  fine,  our  Couture?  Isn't  he  fine?"  exclaimed 
Bixiou,  turning  to  Blondet.  "  He  will  ask  us  next  to  erect 
statues  to  him  as  a  benefactor  of  the  species." 

"  It  would  certainly  lead  people  to  conclude  that  the  fool's 
money  is  the  wise  man's  patrimony  by  divine  right/'  said 
Blondet. 

"  Gentlemen,"  cried  Couture,  "  let  us  have  our  laugh  out 
here  to  make  up  for  all  the  times  when  we  must  listen  gravely 
to  solemn  nonsense  justifying  laws  passed  on  the  spur  of  the 
moment." 

"He  is  right,"  said  Blondet.  "What  times  we  live  in, 
gentlemen  !  When  the  fire  of  intelligence  appears  among  us, 
it  is  promptly  quenched  by  haphazard  legislation.  Almost  all 
our  lawgivers  come  up  from  little  parishes  where  they  studied 
human  nature  through  the  medium  of  the  newspapers ;  forth- 
with they  shut  down  the  safety-valve,  and  when  the  machinery 
blows  up  there  is  weeping  and  gnashing  of  teeth  !  We  do 
nothing  nowadays  but  pass  penal  laws  and  levy  taxes.  Will 
you  have  the  sum  of  it  all  ?  There  is  no  religion  left  in  the 
State  !  " 

"Oh,  bravo,  Blondet!  "  cried  Bixiou,  "thou  hast  set  thy 
finger  on  the  weak  spot.  Meddlesome  taxation  has  lost  us 
more  victories  here  in  France  than  the  vexatious  chances  of 
war.  I  once  spent  seven  years  in  the  hulks  of  a  government 
department,  chained  with  bourgeois  to  my  bench.  There  was 
a  clerk  in  the  office,  a  man  with  a  head  on  his  shoulders  ;  he 
had  set  his  mind  upon  making  a  sweeping  reform  of  the  whole 
fiscal  system — ah,  well,  we  took  the  conceit  out  of  him  nicely. 
France  might  have  been  too  prosperous,  you  know  ;  she  might 


THE   FIRM  OF  NUCLVGEN.  3!9 

have  amused  herself  by  conquering  Europe  again  ;  we  acted  in 
the  interests  of  the  peace  of  nations.  I  slew  Rabourdin  with 
a  caricature."  * 

"  By  religion  I  do  not  mean  cant ;  I  use  the  word  in  its  wide 
political  sense,"  rejoined  Blondet. 

"Explain  your  meaning,"  said  Finot. 

"  Here  it  is,"  returned  Blondet.  "  There  has  been  a  good 
deal  said  about  affairs  at  Lyons ;  about  the  Republic  cannon- 
aded in  the  streets ;  well,  there  was  not  a  word  of  truth  in  it 
all.  The  Republic  took  up  the  riots,  just  as  an  insurgent 
snatches  up  a  rifle.  The  truth  is  queer  and  profound,  I  can 
tell  you.  The  Lyons  trade  is  a  soulless  trade.  They  will  not 
weave  a  yard  of  silk  unless  they  have  the  order  and  are  sure 
of  payment.  If  orders  fall  off,  the  workmen  may  starve ;  they 
can  scarcely  earn  a  living,  convicts  are  better  off.  After  the 
Revolution  of  July,  the  distress  reached  such  a  pitch  that  the 
Lyons  weavers — the  canuts,  as  they  call  them — hoisted  the  flag, 
'  Bread  or  Death  ! '  a  proclamation  of  a  kind  which  compels 
the  attention  of  a  government.  It  was  really  brought  about 
by  the  cost  of  living  at  Lyons ;  Lyons  must  build  theatres  and 
become  a  metropolis,  forsooth,  and  the  octroif  duties  accord- 
ingly were  insanely  high.  The  Republicans  got  wind  of  this 
bread  riot,  they  organized  the  canuts  in  two  camps,  and  fought 
among  themselves.  Lyons  had  her  Three  Days,  but  order 
was  restored,  and  the  silk  weavers  went  back  to  their  dens. 
Hitherto  the  canut  had  been  honest ;  the  silk  for  his  work  was 
weighed  out  to  him  in  hanks,  and  he  brought  back  the  same 
weight  of  woven  tissue ;  now  he  made  up  his  mind  that  the 
silk  merchants  were  oppressing  him  ;  he  put  honesty  out  at 
the  door  and  rubbed  oil  on  his  fingers.  He  still  brought 
back  weight  for  weight,  but  he  sold  the  silk  represented  by 
the  oil ;  and  the  French  silk  trade  has  suffered  from  a  plague 
of  'greased  silks,'  which  might  have  ruined  Lyons  and  a 
whole  branch  of  French  commerce.  The  masters  and  the 

*  See  "  The  Workpeople."  f  Dues  collected  at  the  city  gates. 


350  THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN. 

Government,  instead  of  removing  the  causes  of  the  evil,  simply 
drove  it  in  with  a  violent  external  application.  They  ought 
to  have  sent  a  clever  man  to  Lyons,  one  of  those  men  that  are 
said  to  have  no  principle,  an  Abbe  Terray ;  but  they  looked 
at  the  affair  from  a  military  point  of  view.  The  result  of  the 
troubles  is  a  gros  de  Naples  at  forty  sous  per  yard  ;  the  silk  is 
sold  at  this  day,  I  dare  say,  and  the  masters  no  doubt  have 
hit  upon  some  new  check  upon  the  men.  This  method  of 
manufacturing  without  looking  ahead  ought  never  to  have 
existed  in  the  country  where  one  of  the  greatest  citizens  that 
France  has  ever  known  ruined  himself  to  keep  six  thousand 
weavers  in  work  without  orders.  Richard  Lenoir  fed  them, 
and  the  Government  was  thick-headed  enough  to  allow  him 
to  suffer  from  the  fall  of  the  prices  of  textile  fabrics  brought 
about  by  the  Revolution  of  1814.  Richard  Lenoir  is  the  one 
case  of  a  merchant  that  deserves  a  statue.  And  yet  the  sub- 
scription set  on  foot  for  him  has  no  subscribers,  while  the  fund 
for  General  Foy's  children  reached  a  million  francs.  Lyons 
has  drawn  her  own  conclusions ;  she  knows  France,  she  knows 
that  there  is  no  religion  left.  The  story  of  Richard  Lenior  is 
one  of  those  blunders  which  Fouch6  condemned  as  worse  than 
a  crime." 

"  Suppose  that  there  is  a  tinge  of  charlatanism  in  the  way 
in  which  concerns  are  put  before  the  public,"  began  Couture, 
returning  to  the  charge,  "  that  word  charlatanism  has  come 
to  be  a  damaging  expression,  a  middle  term,  as  it  were,  be- 
tween right  and  wrong ;  for  where,  I  ask  you,  does  charla- 
tanism begin  ?  where  does  it  end  ?  what  is  charlatanism  ?  do 
me  the  kindness  of  telling  me  what  it  is  not.  Now  for  a  little 
plain  speaking,  the  rarest  social  ingredient.  A  business  which 
should  consist  in  going  out  at  night  to  look  for  goods  to  sell 
in  the  day  would  be  obviously  impossible.  You  find  the  in- 
stinct of  forestalling  the  market  in  the  very  match-seller. 
How  to  forestall  the  market — that  is  the  one  idea  of  the  so- 
called  honest  tradesman  of  the  Rue  Saint-Denis,  as  of  the 


THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN.  861 

most  brazen-fronted  speculator.  If  stocks  are  heavy,  sell  you 
must.  If  sales  are  slow,  you  must  tickle  your  customer; 
hence  the  signs  of  the  Middle  Ages,  hence  the  modern  pros- 
pectus. I  do  not  see  a  hair's-breadth  of  difference  between 
attracting  custom  and  forcing  your  goods  upon  the  consumer. 
It  may  happen,  it  is  sure  to  happen,  it  often  happens,  that  a 
storekeeper  gets  hold  of  damaged  goods,  for  the  seller  always 
cheats  the  buyer.  Go  and  ask  the  most  upright  folk  in  Paris 
— the  best-known  men  in  business,  that  is — and  they  will  all 
triumphantly  tell  you  of  dodges  by  which  they  passed  off 
stock  which  they  knew  to  be  bad  upon  the  public.  The  well- 
known  firm  of  Minard  began  by  sales  of  this  kind.  In  the 
Rue  Saint-Denis  they  sell  nothing  but  '  greased  silk; '  it  is  all 
that  they  can  do.  The  most  honest  merchants  tell  you  in  the 
most  candid  way  that  '  you  must  get  out  of  a  bad  bargain  as 
best  you  can  ' — a  motto  for  the  most  unscrupulous  rascality. 
Blondet  has  given  you  an  account  of  the  Lyons  affair,  its 
causes  and  effects,  and  I  proceed  in  my  turn  to  illustrate  my 
theory  with  an  anecdote  :  There  was  once  a  woolen  weaver, 
an  ambitious  man,  burdened  with  a  large  family  of  children 
by  a  wife  too  much  beloved.  He  put  too  much  faith  in  the 
Republic,  laid  in  a  stock  of  scarlet  wool,  and  manufactured 
those  red-knitted  caps  that  you  may  have  noticed  on  the 
heads  of  all  the  street  urchins  in  Paris.  How  this  came  about 
I  am  just  going  to  tell  you.  The  Republic  was  beaten.  After 
the  Saint-Merri  affair  the  caps  were  quite  unsalable.  Now, 
when  a  weaver  finds  that  beside  a  wife  and  children  he  has 
some  ten  thousand  red  woolen  caps  in  the  house,  and  that  no 
hatter  will  take  a  single  one  of  them,  notions  begin  to  pass 
through  his  head  as  fast  as  if  he  were  a  banker  racking  his 
brains  to  get  rid  of  ten  million  francs'  worth  of  shares  in  some 
dubious  investment.  As  for  this  Law  of  the  Faubourg,  this 
Nucingen  of  caps,  do  you  know  what  he  did?  He  went  to 
find  a  pothouse  dandy,  one  of  those  comic  men  that  drive 
police  sergeants  to  despair  at  open-air  dancing  saloons  at  the 


352  THE  FIRM  OF  NUC1NGEN. 

barriers ;  him  he  engaged  to  play  the  part  of  an  American 
captain  staying  at  Meurice's  and  buying  for  the  export  trade. 
He  was  to  go  to  some  large  hatter,  who  still  had  a  cap  in  his 
store-window,  and  '  inquire  for '  ten  thousand  red  woolen 
caps.  The  hatter,  scenting  business  in  the  wind,  hurried 
round  to  the  woolen  weaver  and  rushed  upon  the  stock. 
After  that,  no  more  of  the  American  captain,  you  understand, 
and  great  plenty  of  caps.  If  you  interfere  with  the  freedom 
of  trade,  because  free  trade  has  its  drawbacks,  you  might  as 
well  tie  the  hands  of  justice  because  a  crime  sometimes  goes 
unpunished,  or  blame  the  bad  organization  of  society  because 
civilization  produces  some  evils.  From  the  caps  and  the  Rue 
Saint-Denis  to  joint-stock  companies  and  the  bank — draw 
your  own  conclusions." 

"A  crown  for  Couture  !  "  said  Blondet,  twisting  a  serviette 
into  a  wreath  for  his  head.  "  I  go  further  than  that,  gentle- 
men. If  there  is  a  defect  in  the  working  hypothesis,  what  is 
the  cause  ?  The  law  !  the  whole  system  of  legislation.  The 
blame  rests  with  the  legislature.  The  great  men  of  their  dis- 
tricts are  sent  up  to  us  by  the  provinces,  crammed  with  pa- 
rochial notions  of  right  and  wrong  ;  and  ideas  that  are  indis- 
pensable if  you  want  to  keep  clear  of  collisions  with  justice, 
are  stupid  when  they  prevent  a  man  from  rising  to  the  height 
at  which  a  maker  of  laws  ought  to  abide.  Legislation  may 
prohibit  such  and  such  developments  of  human  passions — 
gambling,  lotteries,  the  Ninons  of  the  pavement,  anything 
you  please — but  you  cannot  extirpate  the  passions  themselves 
by  any  amount  of  legislation.  Abolish  them,  you  would 
abolish  the  society  which  develops  them,  even  if  it  does  not 
produce  them.  The  gambling  passion  lurks,  for  instance,  at 
the  bottom  of  every  heart,  be  it  a  girl's  heart,  a  provincial's, 
a  diplomatist's ;  everybody  longs  to  have  money  without 
working  for  it ;  you  may  hedge  the  desire  about  with  restric- 
tions, but  the  gambling  mania  immediately  breaks  out  in 
another  form.  You  stupidly  suppress  lotteries,  but  the  cook- 


THE   FIRM   OF  NUCINGEN.  353 

maid  pilfers  none  the  less,  and  puts  her  ill-gotten  gains  in  the 
savings  bank.  She  gambles  with  two  hundred  and  fifty  franc 
stakes  instead  of  forty  sous ;  joint-stock  companies  and  specu- 
lation take  the  place  of  the  lottery;  the  gambling  goes  on 
without  the  green  cloth,  the  croupier's  rake  is  invisible,  the 
cheating  planned  beforehand.  The  gambling-houses  are 
closed,  the  lottery  has  come  to  an  end;  'and  now,'  cry 
idiots,  '  morals  have  greatly  improved  in  France,'  as  if,  for- 
sooth, they  had  suppressed  the  punters.  The  gambling  still 
goes  on,  only  the  State  makes  nothing  from  it  now ;  and  for 
a  tax  paid  with  pleasure,  it  has  substituted  a  burdensome  duty. 
Nor  is  the  number  of  suicides  reduced,  for  the  gambler  never 
dies,  though  his  victim  does. 

"  I  am  not  speaking  now  of  foreign  capital  lost  to  France," 
continued  Couture,  "nor  of  the  Frankfort  lotteries.  The 
Convention  passed  a  decree  of  death  against  these  who  hawked 
foreign  lottery-tickets,  and  procureur  syndics  used  to  traffic 
in  them.  So  much  for  the  sense  of  our  legislator  and  his 
driveling  philanthropy.  The  encouragement  given  to  savings 
banks  is  a  piece  of  crass  political  folly.  Suppose  that  things 
take  a  doubtful  turn  and  people  lose  confidence,  the  Govern- 
ment will  find  that  they  have  instituted  a  queue  for  money,  like 
the  queues  outside  the  bakers'  shops.  So  many  savings  banks, 
so  many  riots.  Three  streets  boys  hoist  a  flag  in  some  corner 
or  other,  and  you  have  a  revolution  ready  made. 

"  But  this  danger,  however  great  it  may  be,  seems  to  me 
less  to  be  dreaded  than  the  widespread  demoralization. 
Savings  banks  are  a  means  of  inoculating  the  people,  the 
classes  least  restrained  by  education  or  by  reason  from 
schemes  that  are  tacitly  criminal  with  the  vices  bred  of  self- 
interest.  See  what  comes  of  philanthropy  ! 

"A  great  politician  ought  to  be  without  a  conscience  in 

abstract  questions,  or  he  is  a  bad  steersman  for  a  nation.     An 

honest  politician  is  a  steam-engine  with  feelings,  a  pilot  that 

would  make  love  at  the  helm  and  let  the  ship  go  down.     A 

23 


354  THE   FIRM   OF  NUCINGEN. 

prime  minister  who  helps  himself  to  millions  but  makes 
France  prosperous  and  great  is  preferable,  is  he  not,  to  a  public 
servant  who  ruins  his  country,  even  though  he  is  buried  at  the 
public  expense  ?  Would  you  hesitate  between  a  Richelieu,  a 
Mazarin,  or  a  Potemkin,  each  with  his  hundreds  of  millions 
of  francs,  and  a  conscientious  Robert  Lindet*  that  could  make 
nothing  out  of  assignats  (paper  money)  and  national  property, 
or  one  of  the  virtuous  imbeciles  who  ruined  Louis  XVI.? 
Go  on,  Bixiou." 

"  I  will  not  go  into  the  details  of  the  speculation  which  we 
owe  to  Nucingen's  financial  genius.  It  would  be  the  more 
inexpedient  because  the  concern  is  still  in  existence  and  shares 
are  quoted  on  the  Bourse.  The  scheme  was  so  convincing, 
there  was  such  life  in  an  enterprise  sanctioned  by  royal  letters- 
patent,  that,  though  the  shares  issued  at  a  thousand  francs  fell 
to  three  hundred,  they  rose  to  seven,  and  will  reach  par  yet, 
after  weathering  the  stormy  years  '27,  '30,  and  '32.  The 
financial  crisis  of  1827  sent  them  down;  after  the  Revolution 
of  July  they  fell  flat ;  but  there  is  really  something  in  the 
affair,  Nucingen  simply  could  not  invent  a  bad  speculation. 
In  short,  as  several  banks  of  the  highest  standing  have  been 
mixed  up  in  the  affair,  it  would  be  unparliamentary  to  go 
further  into  detail.  The  nominal  capital  amounted  to  ten 
millions;  the  real  capital  to  seven.  Three  millions  were 
allotted  to  the  founders  and  bankers  that  brought  it  out. 
Everything  was  done  with  a  view  to  sending  up  the  shares 
two  hundred  francs  during  the  first  six  months  by  the  payment 
of  a  sham  dividend.  Twenty  per  cent,  on  ten  millions ! 
Du  Tillet's  interest  in  the  concern  amounted  to  five  hundred 
thousand  francs.  In  the  stock-exchange  slang  of  the  day, 
this  share  of  the  spoils  was  a  '  sop  in  the  pan.'  Nucingen, 
with  his  millions  made  by  the  aid  of  a  lithographer's  stone 
and  a  handful  of  pink  paper,  proposed  to  himself  to  operate 
certain  nice  little  shares  carefully  hoarded  in  his  private  office 
*  Minister  of  Finance  of  the  Republic. 


THE   FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN.  366 

till  the  time  came  for  putting  them  on  the  market.  The 
shareholder's  money  floated  the  concern,  and  .paid  for  splen- 
did business  premises,  so  they  began  operations.  And  Nucin- 
gen  held  in  reserve  founders'  shares  in  heaven  knows  what 
coal  and  argentiferous  lead-mines,  also  in  a  couple  of  canals; 
the  shares  had  been  given  to  him  for  bringing  out  the  con- 
cerns. All  four  were  in  working  order,  well  gotten  up  and 
popular,  for  they  paid  good  dividends. 

"  Nucingen  might,  of  course,  count  on  getting  the  differ- 
ences if  the  shares  went  up,  but  this  formed  no  part  of  the 
baron's  schemes  ;  he  left  the  shares  at  sea-level  on  the  market 
to  tempt  the  fishes. 

"So  he  had  massed  his  securities  as  Napoleon  massed  his 
troops,  all  with  a  view  to  suspending  payment  in  the  thick  of 
the  approaching  crisis  of  1826-27  which  revolutionized 
European  markets.  If  Nucingen  had  had  his  Prince  of 
Wagram,  he  might  have  said,  like  Napoleon  from  the  heights 
of  Santon,  '  Make  a  careful  survey  of  the  situation ;  on  such 
and  such  a  day,  at  such  an  hour,  funds  will  be  poured  in  at 
such  a  spot.'  But  in  whom  could  he  confide?  Du  Tillet  had 
no  suspicion  of  his  own  complicity  in  Nucingen's  plot ;  and 
the  bold  baron  had  learned  from  his  previous  experiments  in 
suspensions  of  payment  that  he  must  have  some  man  whom 
he  could  trust  to  act  at  need  as  a  lever  upon  the  creditor. 
Nucingen  had  never  a  nephew,  he  dared  not  take  a  confidant; 
yet  he  must  have  a  devoted  and  intelligent  Claparon,  a  born 
diplomatist  with  a  good  manner,  a  man  worthy  of  him,  and 
fit  to  take  office  under  Government.  Such  connections  are 
not  made  in  a  day  nor  yet  in  a  year.  By  this  time  Rastignac 
had  been  so  thoroughly  entangled  by  Nucingen,  that  being, 
like  the  Prince  de  la  Paix,  equally  beloved  by  the  King  and 
Queen  of  Spain,  he  fancied  that  he  (Rastignac)  had  secured 
a  very  valuable  dupe  in  Nucingen  !  For  a  long  while  he  had 
laughed  at  a  man  whose  capacities  he  was  unable  to  estimate ; 
he  ended  in  a  sober,  serious,  and  devout  admiration  of  \ucin- 


356  THE   FIRM   OF  NUCINGEN. 

gen,  owning  that  Nucingen  really  had  the  power  which  he 
thought  that  he  himself  alone  possessed. 

"From  Rastignac's  introduction  to  society  in  Paris,  he  had 
been  led  to  contemn  it  utterly.  From  the  year  1820  he 
thought,  like  the  baron,  that  honesty  was  a  question  of 
appearances ;  he  looked  upon  the  world  as  a  mixture  of  cor- 
ruption and  rascality  of  every  sort.  If  he  admitted  excep- 
tions, he  condemned  the  mass ;  he  put  no  belief  in  any  virtue 
— men  did  right  or  wrong,  as  circumstances  decided.  His 
worldly  wisdom  was  the  work  of  a  moment ;  he  learned  his 
lesson  at  the  summit  of  Pere  Lachaise  one  day  when  he  buried 
a  poor,  good  man  there ;  it  was  his  Delphine's  father,  who 
died  deserted  by  his  daughters  and  their  husbands,  a  dupe  of 
our  society  and  of  the  truest  affection.  Rastignac  then  and 
there  resolved  to  exploit  this  world,  to  wear  full  dress  of 
virtue,  honesty,  and  fine  manners.  He  was  empanoplied  in 
selfishness.  When  the  young  scion  of  nobility  discovered 
that  Nucingen  wore  the  same  armor,  he  respected  him  much 
as  some  knight  mounted  upon  a  barb  and  arrayed  in  damas- 
cened steel  would  have  respected  an  adversary  equally  well 
horsed  and  equipped  at  a  tournament  in  the  Middle  Ages. 
But  for  the  time  he  had  grown  effeminate  amid  the  delights 
of  Capua,  The  friendship  of  such  a  woman  as  the  Baronne 
de  Nucingen  is  of  a  kind  that  sets  a  man  abjuring  egoism  in 
all  its  forms. 

"Delphine  had  been  deceived  once  already;  in  her  first  ven- 
ture of  the  affections  she  came  across  a  piece  of  Birmingham 
manufacture,  in  the  shape  of  the  late  lamented  de  Marsay ; 
and  therefore  she  could  not  but  feel  a  limitless  affection  for  a 
young  provincial  with  all  the  provincial's  articles  of  faith. 
Her  tenderness  reacted  upon  Rastignac.  So  by  the  time  that 
Nucingen  had  put  his  wife's  friend  into  the  harness  in  which 
the  exploiter  always  gets  the  exploited,  he  had  reached  the 
precise  juncture  when  he  (the  baron)  meditated  a  third  sus- 
pension of  payment.  To  Rastignac  he  confided  his  position; 


THE   FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN.  3T,7 

he  pointed  out  to  Rastignac  a  means  of  making  'reparation.' 
As  a  consequence  of  his  intimacy,  he  was  expected  to  play 
the  part  of  confederate.  The  baron  judged  it  unsafe  to  com- 
municate the  whole  of  his  plot  to  his  conjugal  collaborator. 
Rastignac  quite  believed  in  impending  disaster;  and  the 
baron  allowed  him  to  believe  further  that  he  (Rastignac) 
saved  the  shop. 

"  But  when  there  are  so  many  threads  in  a  skein,  there  are 
apt  to  be  knots.  Rastignac  trembled  for  Delphine's  money. 
He  stipulated  that  Delphine  must  be  independent  and  her 
estate  separated  from  her  husband's,  swearing  to  himself  that 
he  would  repay  her  by  trebling  her  fortune.  As,  however, 
Rastignac  said  nothing  of  himself,  Nucingen  begged  him  to 
take,  in  the  event  of  success,  twenty-five  shares  of  a  thousand 
francs  in  the  argentiferous  lead-mines,  and  Eugene  took  them 
— not  to  offend  him  !  Nucingen  had  put  Rastignac  up  to  this 
the  day  before  that  evening  in  the  Rue  Joubert  when  our 
friend  counseled  Malvina  to  marry.  A  cold  shiver  ran 
through  Rastignac  at  the  sight  of  so  many  happy  folk  in  Paris 
going  to  and  fro  unconscious  of  the  impending  loss ;  even  as 
a  young  commander  might  shiver  at  the  first  sight  of  an  army 
drawn  up  before  a  battle.  He  saw  the  d'Aiglemonts,  the 
d' Aid  riggers,  and  Beaudenord.  Poor  little  Isaure  and  Gode- 
froid  playing  at  love,  what  were  they  but  Acis  and  Galatea 
under  the  rock  which  a  hulking  Polyphemus  was  about  to  send 
down  upon  them?" 

"That  monkey  of  a  Bixiou  has  something  almost  like 
talent,"  said  Blondet. 

"Oh  !  so  I  am  not  maundering  now?"  asked  Bixiou,  en- 
joying his  success  as  he  looked  round  at  his  surprised  auditors. 
"  For  two  months  past,"  he  continued,  "  Godefroid  had  given 
himself  up  to  all  the  little  pleasures  of  preparation  for  the  mar- 
riage. At  such  times  men  are  like  birds  building  nests  in 
spring ;  they  come  and  go,  pick  up  their  bits  of  straw,  and  fly 
off  with  them  in  their  beaks  to  line  the  nest  that  is  to  hold  a 


368  THE  FIRM  CF  NUCINGRN. 

brood  of  young  birds  by-and-by.  Isaure's  bridegroom  had 
taken  a  house  in  the  Rue  de  la  Plancher  at  a  thousand  crowns, 
a  comfortable  little  house,  neither  too  large  nor  too  small, 
which  suited  them.  Every  morning  he  went  round  to  take  a 
look  at  the  workmen  and  to  superintend  the  painters.  He 
had  introduced  '  comfort '  (the  only  good  thing  in  England) — 
heating  apparatus  to  maintain  an  even  temperature  all  over  the 
house;  fresh,  soft  colors,  carefully  chosen  furniture,  neither 
too  showy  nor  too  much  in  the  fashion  ;  spring-blinds  fitted  to 
every  window  inside  and  out ;  plate  and  new  carriages.  He 
had  seen  to  the  stables,  coach-house,  and  harness-room,  where 
Toby,  Joby,  Paddy  floundered  and  fidgeted  about  like  a  mar- 
mot let  loose,  apparently  rejoiced  to  know  that  there  would  be 
women  about  the  place  and  a  'lady! '  This  fervent  passion 
of  a  man  that  sets  up  housekeeping,  choosing  clocks,  going  to 
visit  his  betrothed  with  his  pockets  full  of  patterns  of  stuffs, 
consulting  her  as  to  the  bedroom  furniture,  going,  coming, 
and  trotting  about,  for  love's  sake — all  this,  I  say,  is  a  spec- 
tacle in  the  highest  degree  calculated  to  rejoice  the  hearts 
of  honest  people,  especially  tradespeople.  And  as  nothing 
pleases  folk  better  than  the  marriage  of  a  good-looking  young 
fellow  of  seven-and-twenty  and  a  charming  girl  of  nineteen 
that  dances  admirably  well,  Godefroid  in  his  perplexity  over 
the  corbeille  (wedding-basket)  asked  Mme.  de  Nucingen  and 
Rastignac  to  breakfast  with  him  and  advise  him  on  this  all- 
important  point.  He  hit  likewise  on  the  happy  idea  of  asking 
his  cousin  d'Aiglemont  and  his  wife  to  meet  them,  as  well  as 
Mme.  de  Serizy.  Women  of  the  world  are  ready  enough  to 
join  for  once  in  an  improvised  breakfast-party  at  a  bachelor's 
rooms." 

"  It  is  their  way  of  playing  truant,"  put  in  Blondet. 

"Of  course  they  went  over  the  new  house,"  resumed 
Bixiou.  "Married  women  relish  these  little  expeditions 
as  ogres  relish  warm  flesh  ;  they  feel  young  again  with  the 
young  bliss,  unspoiled  as  yet  by  fruition.  Breakfast  was 


THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN.  359 

served  in  Godefroid's  sitting-room,  decked  out  like  a  troop- 
horse  for  a  farewell  to  bachelor  life.  There  were  dainty  little 
dishes  such  as  women  love  to  devour,  nibble  at,  and  sip  of  a 
morning,  when  they  are  usually  alarmingly  hungry  and  hor- 
ribly afraid  to  confess  to  it.  It  would  seem  that  a  woman 
compromises  herself  by  admitting  that  she  is  hungry.  '  Why 
have  you  come  alone  ? '  inquired  Godefroid  when  Rastignac 
appeared.  '  Mme.  de  Nucingen  is  out  of  spirits  ;  I  will  tell 
you  all  about  it,'  answered  Rastignac,  with  the  air  of  a  man 
whose  temper  has  been  tried.  '  A  quarrel?'  hazarded  Gode- 
froid. '  No.'  At  four  o'clock  the  women  took  flight  for  the 
Bois  de  Boulogne ;  Rastignac  stayed  in  the  room  and  looked 
out  of  the  window,  fixing  his  melancholy  gaze  upon  Toby, 
Joby,  Paddy,  who  stood,  his  arms  crossed  in  Napoleonic 
fashion,  audaciously  posted  in  front  of  Beaudenord's  cab-horse. 
The  child  could  only  control  the  animal  with  his  shrill  little 
voice,  but  the  horse  was  afraid  of  Joby,  Toby. 

"  '  Well,'  began  Godefroid,  'what  is  the  matter  with  you, 
my  dear  fellow  ?  You  look  gloomy  and  anxious ;  your  gayety 
is  forced.  You  are  tormented  by  incomplete  happiness.  It 
is  wretched,  and  that  is  a  fact,  when  one  cannot  marry  the 
woman  one  loves  at  the  mayor's  office  and  the  church.' 

"'Have  you  courage  to  hear  what  I  have  to  say?  I 
wonder  whether  you  will  see  how  much  a  man  must  be  at- 
tached to  a  friend  if  he  can  be  guilty  of  such  a  breach  of 
confidence  as  this  for  his  sake.' 

"Something  in  Rastignac's  voice  stung  like  a  lash  of  a 
whip. 

"  '  IVJiat?1  asked  Godefroid  de  Beaudenord,  turning  pale. 

"  '  I  was  unhappy  over  your  joy ;  I  had  not  the  heart  to 
keep  such  a  secret  to  myself  when  I  saw  all  these  preparations, 
your  happiness  in  bloom.' 

"  'Just  say  it  out  in  three  words  ! ' 

"  '  Swear  to  me  on  your  honor  that  you  will  be  as  silent  as 
the  grave ' 


360  THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN. 

11  'As  the  grave,"  repeated  Beaudenord. 

"  '  That  if  one  of  your  nearest  relatives  were  concerned  in 
this  secret,  he  should  not  know  it.' 

"'No.' 

"  '  Very  well.  Nucingen  started  to-night  for  Brussels. 
He  must  file  his  schedule  if  he  cannot  arrange  a  settlement. 
This  very  morning  Delphine  petitioned  for  the  separation  of 
her  estate.  You  may  still  save  your  fortune.' 

"  'How?'  faltered  Godefroid;  the  blood  turned  to  ice  in 
his  veins. 

"  '  Simply  write  to  the  Baron  de  Nucingen,  antedating  your 
letter  a  fortnight,  and  instruct  him  to  invest  all  your  capital 
in  shares.'  Rastignac  suggested  Claparon  and  Company,  and 
continued — '  You  have  a  fortnight,  a  month,  possibly  three 
months,  in  which  to  realize  and  make  something ;  the  shares 
are  still  going  up ' 

"  '  But  d'Aiglemont,  who  was  here  at  breakfast  with  us,  has 
a  million  in  Nucingen's  bank.' 

"  '  Look  here  ;  I  do  not  know  whether  there  will  be  enough 
of  these  shares  to  cover  it ;  and,  beside,  I  am  not  his  friend, 
I  cannot  betray  Nucingen's  confidence.  You  must  not  speak 
to  d'Aiglemont.  If  you  say  a  word,  you  must  answer  to  me 
for  the  consequences.' 

"  Godefroid  stood  stockstill  for  ten  minutes. 

"'Do  you  accept?  Yes  or  no?'  said  the  inexorable 
Rastignac. 

"Godefroid  took  up  the  pen,  wrote  at  Rastignac's  dicta- 
tion, and  signed  his  name. 

"  '  My  poor  cousin  !  '  he  cried. 

"'Each  for  himself,'  said  Rastignac.  'And  there  is  one 
more  settled  ! '  he  added  to  himself  as  he  left  Godefroid  de 
Beaudenord. 

"While  Rastignac  was  manoeuvring  thus  in  Paris,  imagine 
the  state  of  things  on  the  Bourse.  A  friend  of  mine,  a  pro- 
vincial, a  stupid  creature,  once  asked  me  as  we  came  past  the 


THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN.  361 

Bourse  between  four  and  five  in  the  afternoon  what  all  that 
crowd  of  chatterers  was  doing,  what  they  could  possibly  find 
to  say  to  each  other,  and  why  they  were  wandering  to  and  fro 
when  business  in  public  securities  was  over  for  the  day. 
'My  friend,'  said  I,  'they  have  made  their  meal,  and  now 
they  are  digesting  it ;  while  they  digest  it,  they  gossip  about 
their  neighbors,  or  there  would  be  no  commercial  security  in 
Paris.  Concerns  are  floated  here,  such  and  such  a  man — 
Palma,  for  instance,  who  is  something  the  same  here  as 
Sinard  at  the  Academic  Royale  des  Sciences — Palma  says, 
"Let  the  speculation  be  made!"  and  the  speculation  is 
made.'" 

"What  a  man  that  Hebrew  is,"  put  in  Blondet ;  "he  has 
not  had  a  university  education,  but  a  universal  education. 
And  universal  does  not  in  his  case  mean  superficial ;  whatever 
he  knows,  he  knows  to  the  bottom.  He  has  a  genius,  an 
intuitive  faculty  for  business.  He  is  the  oracle  of  all  the 
lynxes  that  rule  the  Paris  market  3  they  will  not  touch  an 
investment  until  Palma  has  looked  into  it.  He  looks  solemn, 
he  listens,  ponders,  and  reflects;  his  interlocutor  thinks  that 
after  this  consideration  he  has  come  round  his  man,  till  Palma 
says,  'This  will  not  do  for  me.'  The  most  extraordinary 
thing  about  Palma,  to  my  mind,  is  the  fact  that  he  and  Wer- 
brust  were  partners  for  ten  years,  and  there  was  never  the 
shadow  of  a  disagreement  between  them." 

"  That  is  the  way  with  the  very  strong  or  the  very  weak  ; 
any  two  between  the  extremes  fall  out  and  lose  no  time  in 
making  enemies  of  each  other,"  said  Couture. 

"  Nucingen,  you  see,  had  neatly  and  skillfully  put  a  little 
bombshell  under  the  colonnades  of  the  Bourse,  and  toward 
four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  it  exploded.  '  Here  is  some- 
thing serious;  have  you  heard  the  news?'  asked  du  Tillet, 
drawing  Werbrust  into  a  corner.  'Here  is  Nucingen  gone 
off  to  Brussels,  and  his  wife  petitioning  for  the  separation  of 
her  estate.' 


362  THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN. 

"  '  Are  you  and  he  in  it  together  for  a  liquidation  ?  '  asked 
Werbrust,  smiling. 

"'No  foolery, 'Werbrust,'  said  du  Tillet.  'You  know 
the  holders  of  his  paper.  Now,  look  here.  There  is  business 
in  it.  Shares  in  this  new  concern  of  ours  have  gone  up  twenty 
per  cent,  already ;  they  will  go  up  to  five-and-twenty  by  the 
end  of  the  quarter ;  you  know  why.  They  are  going  to  pay 
a  splendid  dividend.' 

'"Sly  dog,'  said  Werbrust.  '  Get  along  with  you  ;  you  are 
a  devil  with  long  and  sharp  claws,  and  you  have  them  deep 
in  the  butter.' 

"  'Just  let  me  speak  or  we  shall  not  have  time  to  operate. 
I  hit  on  the  idea  as  soon  as  I  heard  the  news.  I  positively 
saw  Mme.  de  Nucingen  crying;  she  is  afraid  for  her  fortune.' 

"'Poor  little  thing!'  said  the  old  Alsacian  Jew,  with 
an  ironical  expression.  '  Well  ?  '  he  added,  as  du  Tillet  was 
silent. 

"  '  Well.  At  my  place  I  have  a  thousand  shares  of  a  thou- 
sand francs  in  our  concern ;  Nucingen  handed  them  over  to 
me  to  put  on  the  market,  do  you  understand  ?  Good.  Now 
let  us  buy  up  a  million  of  Nucingen's  paper  at  a  discount  of 
ten  or  twenty  per  cent.,  and  we  shall  make  a  handsome  per- 
centage out  of  it.  We  shall  be  debtors  and  creditors  both ; 
confusion  will  be  worked  !  But  we  must  set  about  it  care- 
fully, or  the  holders  may  imagine  that  we  are  operating  in 
Nucingen's  interests.' 

"Then  Werbrust  understood.  He  squeezed  du  Tillet's 
hand  with  an  expression  such  as  a  woman's  face  wears  when 
she  is  playing  her  neighbor  a  trick. 

"  Martin  Falleix  came  up.  '  Well,  have  you  heard  the 
news?  '  he  asked.  '  Nucingen  has  stopped  payment.' 

"  'Pooh,'  said  Werbrust,  'pray  don't  noise  it  about ;  give 
those  that  hold  his  paper  a  chance.' 

"  '  What  is  the  cause  of  the  smash;  do  you  know?  '  put  in 
Claparon. 


THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN.  363 

"  'You  know  nothing  about  it,'  said  du  Tillet.  'There 
isn't  any  smash.  Payment  will  be  made  in  full.  Nucingen 
will  start  again  ;  I  shall  find  him  all  the  money  he  wants.  I 
kno\v  the  causes  of  the  suspension.  He  put  all  his  capital  into 
Mexican  securities,  and  they  are  sending  him  metal  in  return ; 
old  Spanish  cannon  cast  in  such  an  insane  fashion  that  they 
melted  down  gold  and  bell-metal  and  church  plate  for  it,  and 
all  the  wreck  of  the  Spanish  dominion  in  the  Indies.  The 
specie  is  slow  in  coming,  and  the  dear  baron  is  hard  up. 
That  is  all.' 

"  '  It  is  a  fact,'  said  Werbrust ;  '  I  am  taking  his  paper  my- 
self at  twenty  per  cent,  discount.' 

"  The  news  spread  swift  as  fire  in  a  straw-rick.  The  most 
contradictory  reports  got  about.  But  such  confidence  was  felt 
in  the  firm  after  the  two  previous  suspensions,  that  every  one 
stuck  to  Nucingen's  paper.  'Palma  must  lend  us  a  hand,' 
said  Werbrust. 

"  Now  Palma  was  the  Kellers'  oracle,  and  the  Kellers  were 
brimful  of  Nucingen's  paper.  A  hint  from  Palma  would  be 
enough.  Werbrust  arranged  with  Palma,  and  he  rang  the 
alarm  bell.  There  was  a  panic  next  day  on  the  Bourse.  The 
Kellers,  acting  on  Palma's  advice,  let  go  Nucingen's  paper  at 
ten  per  cent,  of  loss;  they  set  the  example  on  'Change,  for 
they  were  supposed  to  know  very  well  what  they  were  about. 
Taillefer  followed  up  with  three  hundred  thousand  francs  at  a 
discount  of  twenty  per  cent.,  and  Martin  Filleix  with  two 
hundred  thousand  at  fifteen.  Gigonnet  saw  what  was  going 
on.  He  helped  to  spread  the  panic,  with  a  view  to  buying 
up  Nucingen's  paper  himself  and  making  a  commission  of  two 
or  three  per  cent,  out  of  Werbrust. 

"In  a  corner  of  the  Bourse  he  came  upon  poor  Matifat, 
who  had  three  hundred  thousand  francs  in  Nucingen's  bank. 
Matifat,  ghastly  and  haggard,  beheld  the  terrible  Gigonnet, 
the  bill-discounter  of  his  old  quarter,  coming  up  to  worry 
him.  He  shuddered  in  spite  of  himself. 


364  THE  FIRM   OF  NUCINGEN. 

"'Things  are  looking  bad.  There  is  a  crisis  on  hand. 
Nucingen  is  compounding  with  his  creditors.  But  this  does 
not  interest  you,  Daddy  Matifat;  you  are  out  of  business.' 

"  '  Oh,  well,  you  are  mistaken,  Gigonnet  ;*  I  am  in  for  three 
hundred  thousand  francs.  I  meant  to  speculate  in  Spanish 
bonds.' 

"  '  Then  you  have  saved  your  money.  Spanish  bonds  would 
have  swept  everything  away ;  whereas  I  am  prepared  to  offer 
you  something  like  fifty  per  cent,  for  your  account  with 
Nucingen.' 

"  '  I  would  rather  wait  for  the  composition,'  said  Matifat ; 
'  I  never  knew  a  banker  yet  that  paid  less  than  fifty  per  cent. 

Ah,  if  it  were  only  a  matter  of  ten  per  cent,  of  loss '  added 

the  retired  man  of  drugs. 

"  'Well,  will  you  take  fifteen?'  asked  Gigonnet. 

11 '  You  are  very  keen  about  it,  it  seems  to  me,'  said  Matifat. 

"'Good-night.' 

"  '  Will  you  take  twelve?' 

"  '  Done,'  said  Gigonnet. 

"Before  night  two  millions  had  been  bought  up  in  the 
names  of  the  three  chance-united  confederates,  and  posted  by 
du  Tillet  to  the  debit  side  of  Nucingen's  account.  Next  day 
they  drew  their  premium. 

"The  dainty  little  old  Baroness  d'Aldrigger  was  at  break- 
fast with  her  two  daughters  and  Godefroid,  when  Rastignac 
came  in  with  a  diplomatic  air  to  steer  the  conversation  on  the 
financial  crisis.  The  Baron  de  Nucingen  felt  a  lively  regard 
for  the  d'Aldrigger  family  ;  he  was  prepared,  if  things  went 
amiss,  to  cover  the  baroness'  account  with  his  best  securities, 
to  wit,  some  shares  in  the  argentiferous  lead-mines,  but  the 
application  must  come  from  the  lady. 

"  '  Poor  Nucingen  ! '  said  the  baroness.  '  What  can  have 
become  of  him? ' 

"  -He  is  in  Belgium.  His  wife  is  petitioning  for  a  separa- 
*  See  "  C£sar  Birotteau." 


THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN.  365 

tion  of  her  property ;  but  he  has  gone  to  see  if  he  can  arrange 
with  some  bankers  to  see  him  through.' 

"'Dear  me!  That  reminds  me  of  my  poor  husband! 
Dear  Monsieur  de  Rastignac,  how  you  must  feel  this,  so  at- 
tached as  you  are  to  the  house  ! ' 

'"If  all  the  indifferent  are  covered,  his  personal  friends 
will  be  rewarded  later  on.  He  will  pull  through ;  he  is  a 
clever  man.' 

"  « An  honest  man,  above  all  things,'  said  the  baroness. 

"A  month  later,  Nucingen  met  all  his  liabilities,  with  no 
formalities  beyond  the  letters  by  which  creditors  signified  the 
investments  which  they  preferred  to  take  in  exchange  for  their 
capital ;  and  with  no  action  on  the  part  of  other  banks  beyond 
registering  the  transfer  of  Nucingen's  paper  for  the  invest- 
ments in  favor. 

"While  du  Tillet,  Werbrust,  Claparon,  Gigonnet,  and 
others  that  thought  themselves  clever  were  fetching  in  Nucin- 
gen's paper  from  abroad  with  a  premium  of  one  per  cent. — 
for  it  was  still  worth  their  while  to  exchange  it  for  securities 
in  a  rising  market — there  was  all  the  more  talk  on  the  Bourse, 
because  there  was  nothing  now  to  fear.  They  babbled  over 
Nucingen  ;  he  was  discussed  and  judged  ;  they  even  slandered 
him.  His  luxurious  life,  his  enterprises  !  When  a  man  has 
so  much  on  his  hands,  he  overreaches  himself,  and  so  forth, 
and  so  forth. 

"  The  talk  was  at  its  height,  when  several  people  were 
greatly  astonished  to  receive  letters  from  Geneva,  Basel, 
Milan,  Naples,  Genoa,  Marseilles,  and  London,  in  which 
their  correspondents,  previously  advised  of  the  failure,  in- 
formed them  that  somebody  was  offering  one  per  cent,  for 
Nucingen's  paper !  'There  is  something  up,'  said  the  lynxes 
of  the  Bourse. 

"The  Court  meanwhile  had  granted  the  application  for 
Mine,  de  Nucingen's  separation  as  to  her  estate,  and  the 
question  became  still  more  complicated.  The  newspapers 


366  7 HE   FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN. 

announced  the  return  of  M.  le  Baron  de  Nucingen  from  a 
journey  to  Belgium ;  he  had  been  arranging,  it  was  said,  with 
a  well-known  Belgian  firm  to  resume  the  working  of  some 
coal-pits  in  the  Bois  de  Bossut.  The  baron  himself  appeared 
on  the  Bourse,  and  never  even  took  the  trouble  to  contradict 
the  slanders  circulating  against  him.  He  scorned  to  reply 
through  the  press ;  he  simply  bought  a  splendid  estate  just 
outside  Paris  for  two  millions  of  francs.  Six  weeks  afterward, 
the  Bordeaux  shipping  intelligence  announced  that  two  vessels 
with  cargoes  of  bullion  to  the  amount  of  seven  millions,  con- 
signed to  the  firm  of  Nucingen,  were  lying  in  the  river. 

"  Then  it  was  plain  to  Palma,  Werbrust,  and  du  Tillet  that 
the  trick  had  been  played.  Nobody  else  was  any  the  wiser. 
The  three  scholars  studied  the  means  by  which  the  great 
bubble  had  been  created,  saw  that  it  had  been  preparing  for 
eleven  months,  and  pronounced  Nucingen  the  greatest  finan- 
cier in  Europe. 

"  Rastignac  understood  nothing  of  all  this,  but  he  had  the 
four  hundred  thousand  francs  which  Nucingen  had  allowed 
him  to  shear  from  the  Parisian  sheep,  and  he  portioned  his 
sisters.  D'Aiglemont,  at  a  hint  from  his  cousin  Beaudenord, 
besought  Rastignac  to  accept  ten  per  cent,  upon  his  million 
if  he  would  undertake  to  convert  it  into  shares  in  a  canal 
which  is  still  to  make,  for  Nucingen  worked  things  with  the 
Government  to  such  purpose  that  the  concessionaries  find  it 
to  their  interest  not  to  finish  their  scheme.  Charles  Grandet 
implored  Delphine's  lover  to  use  his  interest  to  secure  shares 
for  him  in  exchange  for  his  cash.  And  altogether  Rastignac 
played  the  part  of  Law  for  ten  days ;  he  had  the  prettiest 
duchesses  in  France  praying  him  to  allot  shares  to  them,  and 
to-day  the  young  man  very  likely  has  an  income  of  forty 
thousand  livres,  derived  in  the  first  instance  from  the  argen- 
tiferous lead-mines." 

"  If  every  one  was  better  off,  who  can  have  lost?  "  asked 
Finot. 


THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN.  367 

"Hear  the  conclusion,"  rejoined  Bixiou.  "The  Marquis 
d'Aiglemont  and  Beaudenord  (I  put  them  forward  as  two  ex- 
amples out  of  many)  kept  their  allotted  shares,  enticed  by  the 
so-called  dividend  that  fell  due  a  few  months  afterward.  They 
had  another  three  'per  cent,  on  their  capital,  they  sang  Nu- 
cingen's  praises,  and  took  his  part  at  a  time  when  everybody 
suspected  that  he  was  going  to  bankrupt.  Godefroid  married 
his  beloved  Isaure  and  took  shares  in  the  mines  to  the  value 
of  a  hundred  thousand  francs.  The  Nucingens  gave  a  ball 
even  more  splendid  than  people  expected  of  them  on  the  occa- 
sion of  the  wedding ;  Delphine's  present  to  the  bride  was  a 
charming  set  of  rubies.  Isaure  danced,  a  happy  wife,  a  girl 
no  longer.  The  little  baroness  was  more  than  ever  a  Shep- 
herdess of  the  Alps.  The  ball'was  at  its  height  when  Malvina, 
the  Andalouse  of  Musset's  poem,  heard  du  Tillet's  voice  drily 
advising  her  to  take  Desroches.  Desroches,  warmed  to  the 
right  degree  by  Rastignac  and  Nucingen,  tried  to  come  to  an 
understanding  financially ;  but  at  the  first  hint  of  shares  in 
the  mines  for  the  bride's  portion,  he  broke  off  and  went  back 
to  the  Matifats  in  the  Rue  du  Cherche-Midi,  only  to  find  the 
accursed  canal  shares  which  Gigonnet  had  foisted  on  Matifat 
in  lieu  of  cash. 

"  They  had  not  long  to  wait  for  the  crash.  The  firm  of 
Claparon  did  business  on  too  large  a  scale,  the  capital  was 
locked  up,  the  concern  ceased  to  serve  its  purposes,  or  to  pay 
dividends,  though  the  speculations  were  sound.  These  mis- 
fortunes coincided  with  the  events  of  1827.  In  1829  it  was  too 
well  known  that  Claparon  was  a  man  of  straw  set  up  by  the 
two  giants  ;  he  fell  from  his  pedestal.  Shares  that  had  fetched 
twelve  hundred  and  fifty  francs  fell  to  four  hundred,  though 
intrinsically  they  were  worth  six.  Nucingen,  knowing  their 
value,  bought  them  up  at  four. 

"  Meanwhile  the  little  Baroness  d'Aldrigger  had  sold  out  of 
the  mines  that  paid  no  dividends,  and  Godefroid  had  rein- 
vested the  money  belonging  to  his  wife  and  her  mother  in 


G68  THE   FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN. 

Claparon's  concern.  Debts  compelled  them  to  realize  when 
the  shares  were  at  their  lowest,  so  that  of  seven  hundred  thou- 
sand francs  only  two  hundred  thousand  remained.  They  made 
a  clearance,  and  all  that  was  left  was  prudently  invested  in  the 
three  per  cents,  at  seventy-five.  Godefroid,  the  sometime  gay 
and  careless  bachelor  who  had  lived  without  taking  thought 
all  his  life  long,  found  himself  saddled  with  a  little  goose  of 
a  wife  totally  unfitted  to  bear  adversity  (indeed,  before  six 
months  were  over  he  had  witnessed  the  anserine  transformation 
of  his  beloved),  to  say  nothing  of  a  mother-in-law  whose  mind 
ran  on  pretty  dresses  while  she  had  not  bread  to  eat.  The 
two  families  must  live  together  to  live  at  all.  It  was  only  by 
stirring  up  all  his  considerably  chilled  interest  that  Godefroid 
got  a  post  in  the  audit  department.  His  friends  ?  They  were 
out  of  town.  His  relatives?  All  astonishment  and  promises. 
'  What !  my  dear  boy  !  Oh  !  count  upon  me  !  Poor  fellow  ! ' 
and  Beaudenord  was  clean  forgotten  fifteen  minutes  afterward. 
He  owed  his  place  to  Nucingen  and  de  Vandenesse. 

"And  to-day  these  so  estimable  and  unfortunate  people  are 
living  on  a  fourth  floor  (not  counting  the  entresol)  in  the  Rue 
du  Mont  Thabor.  Malvina,  the  Adolphus'  pearl  of  a  grand- 
daughter, has  not  a  farthing.  She  gives  music-lessons,  not  to 
be  a  burden  upon  her  brother-in-law.  You  may  see  a  tall, 
dark,  thin,  withered  woman,  like  a  mummy  escaped  from 
Passalacqua's,  about  afoot  through  the  streets  of  Paris.  In 
1830  Beaudenord  lost  his  situation  just  as  his  wife  presented 
him  with  a  fourth  child.  A  family  of  eight  and  two  servants 
(Wirth  and  his  wife)  and  an  income  of  eight  thousand  livres. 
And  at  this  moment  the  mines  are  paying  so  well  that  an 
original  share  of  a  thousand  francs  brings  in  a  dividend  of 
cent,  per  cent. 

"  Rastignac  and  Mme.  de  Nucingen  bought  the  shares  sold 
by  the  baroness  and  Godefroid.  The  Revolution  made  a 
peer  of  France  of  Nucingen  and  a  grand  officer  of  the  Legion 
of  Honor.  He  has  not  stopped  payment  since  1830,  but  still 


THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN.  369 

I  hear  that  he  has  something  like  seventeen  millions.  He  put 
faith  in  the  Ordinances  of  July,  sold  out  of  all  his  investments, 
and  boldly  put  his  money  into  the  Funds  when  the  three  per 
cents,  stood  at  forty-five.  He  persuaded  the  Tuileries  that 
this  was  done  out  of  devotion,  and  about  the  same  time  he 
and  du  Tillet  between  them  swallowed  down  three  millions 
belonging  to  that  great  scamp  Philippe  Bridau. 

"Quite  lately  our  baron  was  walking  along  the  Rue  de 
Rivoli  on  his  way  to  the  Bois  when  he  met  the  Baroness 
d'Aldrigger  under  the  colonnade.  The  little  old  lady  wore  a 
tiny  green  bonnet  with  a  rose-colored  lining,  a  flowered  gown, 
and  a  mantilla ;  altogether,  she  was  more  than  ever  the 
Shepherdess  of  the  Alps.  She  could  no  more  be  made  to 
understand  the  causes  of  her  poverty  than  the  sources  of  her 
wealth.  As  she  went  along,  leaning  upon  poor  Malvina,  that 
model  of  heroic  devotion,  she  seemed  to  be  the  young  girl 
and  Malvina  the  old  mother.  Wirth  followed  them,  carrying 
an  umbrella. 

"  '  Dere  are  beoples  whose  vordune  I  vound  it  imbossible 
to  make,'  said  the  baron,  addressing  his  companion  (M. 
Cointet,  a  cabinet  minister).  '  Now  dot  de  baroxysm  off 
brincibles  haf  bassed  off,  chust  reinshtate  dot  boor  Peaute- 
nord.' 

"  So  Beaudenord  went  back  to  his  desk,  thanks  to  Nucin- 
gen's  good  offices  ;  and  the  d'Aldriggers  extol  Nucingen  as  a 
hero  of  friendship,  for  he  always  sends  the  little  Shepherdess 
of  the  Alps  and  her  daughters  invitations  to  his  balls.  No 
creature  whatsoever  can  be  made  to  understand  that  the  baron 
yonder  three  times  did  his  best  to  plunder  the  public  without 
breaking  the  letter  of  the  law,  and  enriched  people  in  spite  of 
himself.  No  one  has  a  word  to  say  against  him.  If  anybody 
should  suggest  that  a  big  capitalist  often  is  another  word  for  a 
cut-throat,  it  would  be  a  most  egregious  calumny.  If  stocks 
rise  and  fall,  if  property  improves  and  depreciates,  the  fluctua- 
tions of  the  market  are  caused  by  a  common  movement,  a 
24 


370  THE  FIRM  OF  NUCINGEN, 

something  in  the  air,  a  tide  in  the  affairs  of  men  subject  like 
other  tides  to  lunar  influences.  The  great  Arago  is  much  to 
blame  for  giving  us  no  scientific  theory  to  account  for  this 
important  phenomenon.  The  only  outcome  of  all  this  is  an 
axiom  which  I  have  never  seen  anywhere  in  print " 

"And  that  is?" 

"The  debtor  is  more  than  a  match  for  the  creditor." 

"Oh!"  said  Blondet.  "For  my  own  part,  all  that  we 
have  been  saying  seems  to  me  to  be  a  paraphrase  of  the 
epigram  in  which  Montesquieu  summed  up  /' 'Esprit  des  Lois" 
(The  soul  of  the  laws). 

"What?"  said  Finot. 

"Laws  are  like  spiders'  webs;  the  big  flies  get  through, 
while  the  little  ones  are  caught." 

"  Then,  what  are  you  for  ?  "  asked  Finot. 

"For  absolute  government,  the  only  kind  of  government 
under  which  enterprises  against  the  spirit  of  the  law  can  be 
put  down.  Yes.  Arbitrary  rule  is  the  salvation  of  a  country 
when  it  comes  to  the  support  of  justice,  for  the  right  of  mercy 
is  strictly  one-sided.  The  king  can  pardon  a  fraudulent  bank- 
rupt ;  he  cannot  do  anything  for  the  victims.  The  letter  of 
the  law  is  fatal  to  modern  society." 

"Just  get  that  into  the  electors'  heads  !  "  said  Bixiou. 

"Some  one  has  undertaken  to  do  it." 

"Who?" 

"Time.  As  the  Bishop  of  Leon  said,  '  Liberty  is  ancient, 
but  kingship  is  eternal ; '  any  nation  in  its  right  mind  returns 
to  monarchical  government  in  one  form  or  another." 

"  I  say,  there  was  somebody  next  door,"  remarked  Finot, 
hearing  us  rise  to  go. 

"There  always  is  somebody  next  door,"  retorted  Bixiou. 
But  he  must  have  been  drunk. 

PARIS,  November,  1837. 


AN  EPISODE  OF  THE  REIGN  OF 
TERROR 

(Un  Episode  sous  la   Terrfur). 

Translated  by  JNO.    RUDD,  B.  A. 

ABOUT  eight  o'clock  in  the  evening  of  January  22,  1793, 
an  old  gentlewoman  walked  down  the  steep  declivity  of  the 
Saint-Martin  suburb,  ending  at  the  church  of  Saint-Laurent, 
Paris.  Footfalls  could  scarcely  be  heard,  for  the  snow  had 
fallen  heavily  during  the  day.  The  streets  were  deserted. 
The  fear,  natural  to  a  profound  silence,  was  further  strength- 
ened by  the  terror  to  which  the  whole  of  France  was  then 
stricken.  The  old  gentlewoman  had  not  met  any  one.  Her 
dim  and  failing  sight  prevented  her  from  seeing  afar  off  a  few 
pedestrians,  thinly  scattered  as  shadows,  along  the  broad  way 
of  the  faubourg. 

Bravely  she  walked  through  the  solitude  as  though  her  age 
might  prove  a  talisman  against  all  dangers ;  but,  after  leaving 
the  Rue  des  Morts,  she  thought  she  heard  the  heavy  and  firm 
tread  of  a  man  behind  her.  She  felt  that  unconsciously  she 
had  been  listening  to  this  tramp  for  some  length  of  time.  She 
attempted  to  walk  faster,  terrified  at  the  thought  of  being  fol- 
lowed;  the  bright  light  of  a  store-window  seemed  to  offer  a 
solution  of  the  doubt  that  troubled  her.  In  the  shadow  be- 
yond the  horizontal  rays  of  light  cast  across  the  pavement,  she 
abruptly  turned  around  and  plainly  perceived  a  human  figure 
dimly  looming  through  the  mist.  That  one  imperfect  glimpse 
was  enough.  For  an  instant  she  staggered  under  a  stress  of 
terror;  no  longer  was  there  room  for  doubt  that  this  man  un- 
known had,  step  by  step,  tracked  her  from  her  house.  The 
hope  of  escape  from  this  spy  gave  strength  to  her  weakened 

(371) 


372       AN  EPISODE    OF   THE  REIGN  OF  TERROR. 

limbs.  She  ran  for  a  few  minutes,  reached  a  confectionery 
store,  entered  it  and  fell,  rather  than  sat,  upon  a  chair  stand- 
ing in  front  of  the  counter.  A  young  woman,  who  was  work- 
ing embroidery,  looked  up  on  hearing  the  creaking  latch  of 
the  door,  and,  recognizing  through  the  glass-door  an  an- 
tiquated mantle  of  purple  silk  which  the  old  lady  wore,  hurried 
to  open  a  drawer  as  if  intending  to  take  from  thence  something 
that  she  had  to  give  her.  Both  the  action  and  appearance 
of  the  young' woman  implied  a  wish  to  speedily  relieve  herself 
of  the  company  of  her  strange  and  unwelcome  visitor.  She 
found  the  drawer  empty  and  gave  utterance  to  an  exclamation 
of  anger.  Without  appearing  to  notice  the  old  lady  she  came 
quickly  from  behind  the  counter  and,  going  to  the  rear  room, 
called  her  husband,  who  immediately  responded. 

"  Where  have  you  put ?  "  she  asked  him,  in  a  mysterious 

whisper,  not  finishing  the  sentence,  but  calling  to  his  notice 
the  antiquated  person,  with  a  meaning  glance. 

The  confectioner  could  see  nothing  but  the  great  hood  of 
black  silk  encircled  with  ribbons  of  purple  which  the  stranger 
wore;  he  retired,  with  a  motion  to  his  wife  which  plainly 
meant,  "  Can  you  imagine  I  should  leave  that  on  the 
counter?" 

The  visitor  remained  silent  and  immobile,  and  the  wife, 
astonished  at  this,  was  moved  with  compassion  and  curiosity 
as  she  viewed  her.  It  was  plainly  to  be  seen  that  some  recent 
terror  had  spread  an  extra  paleness  over  the  complexion  of  a 
face  naturally  livid,  and  like  that  of  one  given  up  to  secret 
austerities.  The  covering  of  her  head  was  arranged  to  con- 
ceal the  hair,  whitened  doubtless  by  age,  for  the  cleanliness 
of  the  collar  she  wore  precluded  the  idea  of  her  wearing 
powder.  Her  countenance  was  grave  and  noble,  but  this  con- 
cealment of  its  natural  adornment  gave  an  air  of  monastical 
severity.  The  young  storekeeper  was  sure  that  the  stranger 
was  one  of  the  proscribed  nobles  and  that  she  most  probably 
had  belonged  to  the  Court. 


AN  EPISODE    OF   THE  REIGN  OF  TERROR.       373 

"  Madame?"  she  said  with  formal  respect,  forgetful  of  the 
proscribed  title. 

The  old  lady  answered  not.  Some  alarming  object  might 
have  been  painted  upon  the  window  of  the  store,  her  eyes 
were  so  fixed  upon  it. 

"  What  is  the  matter,  citizeness?"  the  master  of  the  place 
inquired  as  he  reentered.  He  then  drew  the  attention  of  his 
visitor  to  a  small,  blue  cardboard  box  and  held  it  out  to  her. 

"It  is  nothing,  my  friends,  nothing,"  she  made  answer  in 
gentlest  tones,  raising  her  eyes  to  give  the  proprietor  a  grateful 
look.  Thus  seeing  a  phrygian*  cap  upon  his  head,  she  gave 
utterance  to  a  low  cry:  "Ah!  you  it  is  that  has  betrayed 
me!" 

A  shrug,  the  deprecating  gesture  of  horror,  was  the  reply 
made  by  both  the  young  woman  and  her  husband.  The  un- 
known lady  reddened  as  she  felt  a  relief  of  feeling  for  her  un- 
just suspicion. 

"  Excuse  me,"  she  said  with  childish  affability.  After 
taking  a  gold  louis  from  her  pocket  she  tendered  it  to  the 
confectioner,  saying,  "Here  is  the  sum  agreed  upon." 

Poor  folk  can  readily  divine  a  disguised  poverty.  The 
storekeeper  and  his  wife  gave  each  a  glance  at  the  other  which 
expressed  the  same  thought.  The  coin  was  doubtless  her  last 
one.  Her  eyes  sadly  rested  upon  it  and  her  hands  tremblingly 
offered  it.  Yet  no  avarice  showed  in  this  dumb  entreaty. 
The  full  extent  of  her  sacrifice  was  manifestly  apparent  to  her. 
Her  features  showed  the  undoubted  tracings  of  hunger  and 
want.  They  were  legible  as  those  of  asceticism  and  timidity. 
Her  attire  showed  vestiges  of  luxury.  It  was  silk,  well-worn ; 
the  mantle,  though  faded,  was  clean ;  the  laces  carefully 
darned ;  it  was,  in  all,  the  remnants  of  opulence.  The  pair 
of  storekeepers  were  divided  between  pity  and  self-interest; 
they  soothed  their  tradesmen  consciences  with  phrases: 

"Citizeness,  you  appear  but  feeble " 

*  The  distinguishing  sign  of  the  Jacquerie. 


374       AN  EPISODE    OF   THE   REIGN  OF  TERROR. 

"Perhaps  madame  would  take  something?"  said  the  wife, 
cutting  off  her  husband. 

"  We  have  good  soup,"  he  added. 

"It  is  very  cold  ;  it  may  be  that  madame  is  made  chill  with 
her  walk;  you  may  rest  here  and  warm  yourself." 

"He  is  not  so  black  as  he  is  painted,  this  devil,"  cried  the 
husband. 

These  kind  words  won  the  heart  of  the  old  lady.  She  told 
them  that  a  man  had  followed  her  and  she  was  afraid  of  re- 
turning alone. 

"And  is  that  all?"  said  the  man  with  the  phrygian  cap. 
"Wait  for  me,  citizeness." 

He  gave  the  louis  to  his  wife.  His  storekeeping  soul  was 
moved  by  a  resemblance  to  gratitude  which  ever  slips  into  such 
petty  minds  when  an  exorbitant  price  has  been  received  for  an 
article  of  little  value.  He  donned  the  uniform  of  the  Na- 
tional Guard,  took  up  his  cap,  slung  on  his  sword,  and  ap- 
peared under  arms.  Meantime  the  wife  had  been  reflecting. 
As  often  occurs  in  many  hearts,  reflection  will  close  the  open 
hand  of  benevolence.  She  was  afraid  lest  her  husband  should 
become  mixed  up  in  some  dangerous  affair ;  ill  at  ease  and 
anxious,  she  pulled  the  tail  of  his  coat,  intending  to  stop  his 
going.  The  worthy  man,  however,  obeyed  the  dictates  of 
Charity  and  offered  himself  as  the  lady's  escort. 

"  Is  it  that  the  man  who  has  affrighted  her  is  now  prowling 
outside?"  asked  the  wife  tremblingly. 

"  I  am  afraid  so,"  said  the  old  lady,  very  simply. 

"  Suppose  that  he  is  a  spy.  It  may  be  a  conspiracy.  Don't 
go.  Take  back  the  box."  The  sudden  compassion  that  had 
warmed  him  was  chilled  by  these  words  whispered  in  his  ear 
by  the  wife  of  his  bosom. 

"Well,  there,  I  will  say  two  words  to  the  fellow  and  get 
rid  of  him,"  he  said.  He  opened  the  door  and  hurried  out. 

Passive  as  a  child  and  nearly  paralyzed  with  fear  the  old 
gentlewoman  again  sat  down.  The  confectioner  very  shortly 


AK  EPISODE   OF  THE  REIGN  OF  TERROR.       375 

returned;  his  face,  red  by  natuae  and  further  scorched  by  the 
fires  of  his  bakery,  had  suddenly  turned  pale,  and  he  was  in 
such  extreme  terror  that  his  legs  trembled  and  his  eyes  were 
drunken  with  fear. 

"Wretched  aristocrat  !  "  he  shrieked,  in  fury,  "  is  it  that 
you  would  cut  off  our  heads  ?  Go  away  from  here,  move  your 
heels,  let  me  see  them,  don't  you  dare  to  come  back;  you  must 
not  suppose  that  I  will  supply  you  with  the  means  for  con- 
spiracy." 

Thus  saying  the  confectioner  made  an  effort  to  regain  pos- 
session of  the  little  box  which  was  ensconced  in  one  of  the 
old  lady's  pockets.  The  bold  hands  of  the  storekeeper  had 
barely  touched  her  clothes  but  that  she  sprang  to  the  open 
door,  preferring  to  meet  danger  without  protection,  other  than 
God's,  than  to  restore  what  she  had  purchased.  She  assumed 
the  agility  of  youth,  disappeared  through  the  doorway,  and 
left  the  husband  and  wife  crushed  with  trembling  and  amaze- 
ment. 

When  she  found  herself  alone  on  the  street  she  walked 
rapidly;  but  soon  her  strength  deserted  her  as  she  once  more 
heard  the  creaking  of  the  snow  under  the  heavy  footsteps  of 
the  spy.  Perforce  she  stopped  short ;  the  man  did  likewise. 
Fain  would  she  have  spoken  to  him,  but  she  dared  not ;  either 
by  reason  of  her  terror  or  a  lack  of  wonted  intelligence  she 
could  not  even  look  at  him.  Somewhat  recovering  she  slowly 
resumed  her  walk.  Step  by  step  did  the  man  measure  hers, 
he  kept  the  same  distance  behind  her,  moving  as  her  shadow. 
As  the  silent  couple  repassed  the  church  of  Saint-Laurent  the 
clock  struck  nine. 

It  is  the  nature  of  even  the  weakest  souls  to  fall  back  into 
tranquillity  after  a  time  of  violent  agitation  ;  for  our  bodily 
powers  are  limited  though  our  feelings  may  be  manifold.  So 
the  old  gentlewoman,  not  receiving  any  injury  from  her  ap- 
parent annoyer,  began  to  imagine  him  a  secret  friend  watching 
over  and  protecting  her.  She  weighed  in  her  mind  the  de- 


376       AN  EPISODE    OF  THE  REIGN  OF  TERROR. 

tails  of  numerous  other  appearances  of  the  mysterious  attend- 
ant and  tried  to  find  some  plausible  pretext  for  this  so  consoling 
thought.  She  took  pleasure  in  giving  credit  to  him  for  good, 
rather  than  discredit  for  sinister,  motives.  She  walked  on 
with  a  firmer  tread,  and  forgot  the  terror  he  had  evidently 
excited  in  the  confectioner,  toward  the  higher  portion  of  the 
Faubourg  Saint-Martin. 

In  about  half  an  hour's  time  she  came  to  a  house  near  the 
junction  of  the  main  street  of  the  suburb  with  that  one  run- 
ning out  to  the  Pantin  barrier.  To-day  this  is  one  of  the 
loneliest  streets  in  all  Paris.  The  north  wind  blew  from  the 
Buttes  Chaumont  and  whistled  among  the  houses,  or  properly 
cottages,  sparsely  scattered  through  the  thinly  inhabited  little 
valley  where  the  fences  are  built  of  mud  and  refuse  bones. 
This  woe-begone  district  is  the  natural  home  of  poverty  and 
grim  despair.  The  man,  intent  on  following  the  poor  crea- 
ture— courageously  threading  these  gloomy  and  silent  streets 
— appeared  struck  with  the  spectacle.  He  paused  reflectingly, 
standing  in  a  hesitating  manner,  being  hardly  visible  by  the 
light  of  a  street  lantern  which  flickeringly  pierced  the  fog. 
Terror  gave  sight  to  the  gentlewoman  and  she  fancied  that 
she  saw  a  something  sinister  on  the  face  of  this  unknown  man. 
Her  terrors  again  revived,  but  profiting  by  his  curious  hesita- 
tion she  swept  like  a  shadow  to  the  portal  of  the  isolated 
dwelling,  touched  a  spring  and  disappeared  with  phantasma- 
goric alertness.  The  man  stood  motionless,  gazing  at  the 
house,  which  was,  as  it  were,  a  type  of  the  miserable  buildings 
of  the  district. 

The  hovel,  tottering  to  its  fall,  was  built  of  rough  blocks  of 
porous  stone,  its  coating  of  yellow  stucco  was  seamed  with 
cracks,  and  only  seemed  to  be  awaiting  a  rough  wind  for  its 
utter  demolition.  The  brown  tiled  roof,  covered  with  moss, 
had  sunk  in  numerous  spots,  giving  the  impression  that  the 
weight  of  the  accumulated  snow  might  crush  it  down  at  any 
moment.  There  were  three  windows  in  each  story;  their 


AN  EPISODE    OF   THE   REIGN  OF  TERROR.       377 

frames  rotten  with  dampness  and  shrunken  with  the  heat  of 
the  sun,  it  was  plain  that  the  outer  cold  must  penetrate  to  the 
interior.  This  lonely  dwelling  stood  like  an  ancient  tower 
that  Time  had  forgotten  to  raze.  Irregularly  cut  in  the  roof 
were  the  garret  windows  whence  gleamed  a  faint  light ;  the 
rest  of  the  house  was  in  dense  obscurity.  The  old  lady  with 
difficulty  climbed  the  clumsy  stairway,  keeping  a  fast  hold  of 
the  rope  baluster.  She  lightly  knocked  on  the  door  of  an 
apartment  in  the  roof,  entered  and  hastily  seated  herself  on  a 
chair  offered  her  by  an  old  man. 

"Hide!  hide  yourself!"  she  cried.  "It  is  but  seldom 
we  go  out,  yet  are  our  errands  known,  our  steps  watched " 

"What  has  occurred?"  asked  another  old  woman,  sitting 
near  the  small  fire. 

"  The  man  who  has  been  hanging  about  the  house  since 
yesterday  followed  me  to-night." 

The  occupants  of  the  place  looked  at  each  other  in  terror. 
The  old  man  was  the  least  concerned  of  the  trio ;  he  was 
in  the  greatest  danger.  When  misfortune  and  the  yoke  of 
persecution  oppress,  a  courageous  man  begins,  as  it  were,  to 
prepare  for  the  sacrifice  of  himself;  he  looks  upon  each  day 
as  a  victory  won  from  Fate.  The  anxiety  which  shone  in  the 
eyes  of  the  two  women,  fixed  as  they  were  upon  the  old  man, 
proved  conclusively  that  he  and  he  alone  was  the  object  of 
their  fear. 

"  Shall  we  distrust  God,  my  sisters?"  he  said  in  a  hollow, 
impressive  voice.  "  Did  we  not  chant  praises  to  Him  amidst 
the  cries  of  assassins  and  victims  in  the  convent  ?  Surely  if 
it  so  pleased  Him  to  save  me  from  that  slaughter,  it  must 
have  been  for  some  destiny  which,  without  a  murmur,  I  shall 
accept.  The  good  God  ever  affords  protection  to  His  own, 
He  disposes  of  them  according  to  His  ever-gracious  will.  It 
is  of  yourselves  that  we  should  think — not  of  me." 

"  No,"  said  the  first  woman  ;  "what  comparison  can  there 
be  between  our  lives  and  that  of  a  priest  ?  " 


378       AN  EPISODE    OF  THE   REIGN   OF  TERROR. 

"I  have  considered  myself  as  dead,"  said  the  nun  seated 
near  the  fire,  "  since  the  day  that  I  found  myself  outside  the 
Abbaye  des  Chelles." 

"Here,"  said  the  one  who  had  lately  entered,  holding  out 

the  little  blue  box  to  the  priest,  "  here  are  the  holy  wafers 

Hark!  "  she  cried,  interrupting  herself.  "I  hear  some  one 
on  the  stairs." 

All  three  listened  intently.     The  noise  ceased. 

"  Do  not  be  alarmed,"  said  the  abbe,  "  even  should  any  one 
request  an  entrance.  A  faithful  and  reliable  person  has  ar 
ranged  matters  to  cross  the  frontier;  he  will  shortly  call  here 
for  letters  I  have  already  written  to  the  Due  de  Langeais  and 
the  Marquis  de  Beauseant,  telling  them  what  measures  they 
must  adopt  to  get  you  out  of  this  dreadful  country,  thus  to 
save  you  from  the  death  or  misery  that  you  must,  otherwise, 
here  undergo." 

"Can  you  not  follow  us?"  said  the  two  nuns,  in  soft, 
despairing  tones. 

"  My  place  is  near  the  victims,"  said  the  priest,  simply. 

The  nuns  sat  silent,  gazing  at  him  with  rapt  admiration. 

"Sister  Martha,"  he  said,  speaking  to  the  nun  who  had 
fetched  the  wafers,  "  the  messenger  must  answer  ' Fiat  vol- 
untas'  to  the  word  '  Hosanna.'  ' 

"  There  is  some  one  on  the  stairway,"  cried  the  other  sister, 
at  the  same  time  quickly  uncovering  a  hiding-place  bored  near 
the  edge  of  the  roof. 

This  time  the  steps  of  a  man,  sounding  in  the  deep  silence 
of  the  rough  stairs,  were  plainly  to  be  heard  as  he  encountered 
the  gnarled  boards  and  the  cakes  of  hardened  mud.  The 
priest,  with  much  difficulty,  slid  into  the  narrow  niche  and 
the  nuns  hastily  covered  him  with  clothes. 

"You  may  shut  me  in,  Sister  Agatha,"  he  said,  in  a  smoth- 
ered voice. 

Hardly  was  he  in  hiding  when  three  knocks  upon  the  door- 
jamb  made  the  nuns  tremble  with  apprehension.  They  con- 


AN  EPISODE    OF  THE   REIG.V  OF  TERROR.       379 

suited  each  other  with  their  eyes,  for  speak  they  dared  not. 
They  were  like  the  plants  of  a  conservatory,  after  their  forty 
years  of  separation  from  the  world,  which  wilt  when  exposed 
to  the  outer  air.  They  knew  none  other  than  the  life  of  the 
convent,  that  only  were  they  accustomed  to,  no  other  could 
they  conceive  of,  their  ideas,  as  their  life,  were  bounded  by  its 
walls ;  and  when,  one  morning,  their  bars  and  gratings  were 
razed  to  the  ground  they  shuddered  to  find  themselves  free. 
One  may  imagine  the  kind  of  imbecility  which  the  events  of 
the  Revolution,  enacted  under  their  eyes,  must  have  produced 
in  these  simple  souls.  They  were  quite  incapable  of  harmoniz- 
ing the  ideas  of  the  convent  with  the  exigencies  of  ordinary 
life  ;  they  comprehended  not  their  own  situation  ;  like  chil- 
dren who  had  ever  had  parental  care,  now  severed  from  their 
maternal  guardianship,  they  had  ceased  not  to  pray  as  other 
children  cease  not  to  cry.  Thus  in  the  presence  of  imminent 
danger  they  remained  dumb,  passive,  and  had  no  other  defense 
than  the  resignation  of  the  Christian. 

The  intending  intruder  was  left  to  interpret  their  silence  as 
he  might,  but  presently  he  opened  the  door  and  gave  view  of 
himself.  The  consternation  of  the  two  nuns  was  great,  and 
they  trembled  as  they  recognized  the  person  who  had  watched 
the  house  for  some  days  past  and  had  seemed  to  make  inquiries 
about  its  inmates.  They  stood  stockstill,  looking  him  over 
with  a  disturbed  curiosity,  like  as  would  the  children  of  sav- 
ages examining  a  being  from  another  clime.  The  stranger 
was  very  tall  and  stout,  yet  there  was  nothing  indicating 
that  he  was  a  bad  man.  The  immobility  of  the  sisters  was 
reproduced  in  himself,  he  remained  without  motion,  his  eyes 
roving  slowly  around  the  room.  On  planks  were  two  bundles 
of  straw  which  served  as  the  nuns'  beds  In  the  centre  of  the 
room  was  a  table,  upon  it  a  copper  candlestick,  a  few  dishes, 
three  knives,  and  a  round  loaf  of  bread.  The  fire  in  the 
grate  was  low,  and  the  few  sticks  of  wood  piled  in  a  corner  of 
the  room  gave  unmistakable  evidence  of  the  poverty  of  the 


380       AN  EPISODE    OF  THE   RE1GX  OF   TERROR. 

occupants.  The  walls,  once  painted,  now  much  defaced, 
showed  the  wretched  state  of  the  roof  through  which  the  rain 
had  trickled,  leaving  a  network  of  brown  stains.  A  sacred 
relic,  rescued,  no  doubt,  from  the  looting  of  the  Abbaye  des 
Chelles,  adorned  the  mantel.  Three  chairs,  two  chests,  and 
a  broken  set  of  drawers  comprised  the  whole  of  the  furniture. 
A  doorway  near  the  fireplace  showed  the  probability  of  an 
inner  apartment. 

The  man  had  soon  mentally  possessed  himself  of  the  inven- 
tory of  this  poor  cell.  Across  his  face  came  an  expression  of 
pity,  he  threw  a  glance  beaming  with  kindliness  upon  the  two 
startled  women  and  appeared  as  much  embarrassed  as  them- 
selves. The  strange  silence  in  which  all  three  stood  and  faced 
each  other,  apparently  long,  really  lasted  but  a  moment,  the 
stranger  seeming  to  realize  the  weakness  and  inexperience  of 
the  poor  helpless  creatures.  In  a  voice  which  he  strove  to 
render  gentle,  he  said — 

"  I  have  not  come  as  an  enemy,  citizenesses."  He  paused, 
then  resuming:  "  My  sisters,  should  harm  happen  to  you,  be 
sure  that  I  shall  not  have  been  the  cause.  I  have  come  to 
beg  a  favor  of  you." 

Still  they  remained  silent. 

"  If  I  ask  too  much — if  I  annoy  you — I  will  at  once  de- 
part; believe  me,  though,  that  I  am  heartily  devoted  to  you; 
should  there  be  any  service  I  can  render  you,  command  me 
without  scruple.  I,  and  I  alone,  perhaps,  am  above  the  law, 
since  the  King  no  longer  exists." 

These  words  given  with  the  true  ring  of  honesty  induced 
Sister  Agatha,  a  nun  belonging  to  the  ducal  house  of  Langeais, 
whose  manner  showed  that  she  had  at  one  time  lived  amid 
the  festivities  of  life  and  inhaled  the  breath  of  Court,  to 
gravely  point  to  a  chair  as  who  should  say:  "Be  seated." 
The  unknown  showed  his  pleasure  by  an  exclamation,  partly 
of  melancholy,  as  he  interpreted  the  gesture.  He  respectfully 
awaited  the  seating  of  the  sisters  and  then  obeyed  it. 


AN  EPISODE    Of    THE    REIGN  OF   TERROR        381 

"  You  have  given  shelter,"  he  said,  "  to  a  venerable  abbe 
who  has  not  sworn  allegiance  to  the  Republic,  who  most  mi- 
raculously escaped  the  massacre  at  the  Carmelite  convent." 

"•Hosantia,"  said  Sister  Agatha,  suddenly  interrupting  the 
stranger,  and  looking  at  him  anxiously  and  curiously. 

"That  is  not  his  name,  I  believe,"  he  made  reply. 

"  But,  monsieur,  there  is  no  priest  here,"  said  Sister  Martha, 
quickly,  "and " 

"  Then  you  should  be  more  careful,"  said  the  visitor  mildly, 
reaching  to  the  table  and  taking  up  a  breviary.  "I  can 
scarcely  think  you  understand  Latin  and " 

The  extreme  distress  depicted  on  the  features  of  the  poor 
nuns  warned  him  that  he  had  gone  too  far,  their  agitation 
was  excessive,  their  eyes  filled  with  tears. 

"Be  not  afraid,"  lie  said,  "I  know  both  the  names  of 
your  guest  and  yourselves.  During  the  past  three  days  I  have 
learned  of  your  indigence  and  your  brave  devotion  to  the 
venerable  Abbe  de " 

"  Hush  i  "  said  Sister  Agatha,  ingenuously  placing  a  finger 
on  her  lips. 

"  You  see,  my  sisters,  that  had  I  had  the  horrible  design  of 
betraying  you,  that  I  might  easily  have  done  so  time  and 
again." 

As  he  uttered  these  words  the  priest  crawled  from  his 
prison  and  appeared  in  the  centre  of  the  room. 

"I  cannot  think,  monsieur,"  he  said  courteously,  "that 
you  can  be  one  of  my  persecutors.  I  trust  you.  What  do  you 
desire  of  me  ?  :' 

The  saint-like  confidence  of  the  aged  man  and  the  nobility 
of  soul  which  showed  on  his  countenance  might  well  have  dis- 
armed an  assassin.  The  mysterious  being  who  had  agitated 
this  penurious  home,  this  place  of  divine  resignation,  stood  in 
contemplation  of  the  group  before  him  ,  then  he  addressed  the 
abbe  in  a  trusting  voice,  with  these  words : 

"  My  father,  I  came  to  ask  you  to  celebrate  a  mass  for  the 


382       AN  EPISODE    OF  THE  REIGN  OF   TERROR. 

repose  of  the  soul — of — of  a  sacred  being  whose  body  can 
never  be  laid  in  holy  ground." 

The  abbe  made  an  involuntary  shudder.  The  nuns  did  not 
know  of  whom  it  was  that  the  strange  man  had  spoken  ;  they 
stood  with  their  necks  stretched,  their  faces  turned  toward  the 
speakers,  plainly  showing  eager  curiosity.  The  ecclesiastic 
looked  searchingly  at  the  stranger;  undoubted  anxiety  was 
discernible  on  every  feature,  and  his  eyes  offered  an  earnest, 
ardent  prayer. 

"Yes,"  said  the  priest  at  length.  "At  midnight  return 
here  and  I  shall  then  be  ready  to  celebrate  the  only  requiem 
mass  that  we  are  able  to  offer  as  expiation  of  the  crime  of 
which  you  speak." 

A  shiver  agitated  the  unknown  ;  then  a  sweet  and  solemn 
joy  appeared  to  rise  above  some  great  and  secret  grief.  He 
respectfully  saluted  the  abbe  and  the  two  saintly  women,  and 
departed  with  a  mute  gratitude  of  which  these  charitable  souls 
knew  so  well  the  interpretation. 

After  two  hours  the  stranger  returned,  knocked  cautiously 
at  the  garret-door,  and  was  admitted  by  Mile,  de  Langeais, 
who  led  him  to  the  inner  room  of  the  lowly  refuge,  where  all 
was  in  readiness  for  the  ceremony.  The  old  set  of  drawers 
had  been  placed  by  the  nuns  between  the  two  chimney-flues, 
its  scarred  edges  being  hid  beneath  a  magnificent  altar-cloth 
of  green  moire.  A  large  ebony  and  ivory  crucifix  hung  on 
the  discolored  wall  and  stood  out  in  bright  relief  from  the  ad- 
jacent bareness,  and  immediately  caught  the  eye.  Four  small, 
slender  tapers,  which  the  sisters  had  managed  to  attach  to  the 
altar  with  sealing-wax,  cast  a  dim  glimmer  hardly  reflected  by 
the  dingy  wall.  These  feeble  rays  barely  lit  up  the  rest  of 
the  chamber,  but  as  their  light  illumined  the  sacred  objects  it 
looked  like  an  aureola  from  heaven  to  enlighten  the  naked, 
undecorated  altar. 

The  floor  was  damp.     The  attic-roof  sloped  sharply  on  each 


AN  EPISODE    OF  THE  REIGN  OF   TERROR.       383 

side  of  the  room  and  was  filled  with  crevices  admitting  the 
boisterous  wind.  Far  from  stately,  there  was  never  aught  more 
solemn  than  this  dismal  service.  A  long  distant  cry  might 
easily  have  pierced  the  solemn  silence — silence  so  profound 
that  it  gave  majestic  awe  to  this  nocturnal  scene.  The  pov- 
erty of  the  surroundings  and  the  grandeur  of  the  ceremony 
made  a  strong  contrast,  arousing  the  holy  terrors  of  religion. 
The  aged  nuns  knelt  on  either  side  of  the  altar  on  the  earthen- 
tiled  floor  with  ne'er  a  thought  of  its  horrid  dampness  ;  they, 
with  the  priest  robed  in  his  pontifical  vestments,  prayed  aloud; 
the  latter  placed  a  golden  chalice,  incrusted  with  gems,  upon 
the  altar — no  doubt  a  sacred  vessel  saved  from  the  pillage  of 
the  Abbaye  des  Chelles.  Near  this  cup,  which  had  been  a 
royal  gift,  was  arranged  the  wafers  and  wine  of  the  eucharist, 
contained  in  two  drinking  glasses  hardly  fit  to  grace  the  dingy 
tables  of  some  mean  tavern.  The  needed  missal  had  been  re- 
placed with  the  priest's  breviary,  and  lay  on  a  corner  of  the 
impromptu  altar.  An  earthen  dish  served  as  the  ablution  cup 
for  the  washing  of  those  hands  innocent  and  spotless  of  blood. 
It  was  at  once  majestic  and  paltry,  poor  yet  noble,  holy  and 
profane  in  one. 

Between  the  sisters  the  unknown  knelt  with  pious  mien. 
Then  his  eyes  caught  sight  of  the  crepe  draping  the  chalice 
and  crucifix — for  bereft  of  other  means  of  making  known  the 
object  of  this  requiem  mass  the  abbe  had  put  God  Himself 
in  mourning — the  mysterious  visitor  was  seized  with  an  all- 
powerful  recollection  and  great  beads  of  perspiration  gathered 
on  his  forehead.  The  four  actors  in  this  awful  drama  gazed 
upon  each  other  in  sympathy,  their  souls  acted  each  upon  the 
other  and  communicated  the  feelings  of  all  in  a  mysterious 
blending  of  holy  pity.  Their  one  thought,  it  seemed,  might 
have  evoked  from  the  dead  that  sacred  martyr  whose  mortal 
remains  had  been  devoured  by  quick-lime,  but  whose  ghost 
rose  before  them  in  full  majestic  royalty. 

They  were  performing  a  requiem  mass  without  the  presence 


384       AN  EPISODE   OF  THE  REIGN  OF  TERROR. 

of  the  dead.  Four  pious  souls  knelt  in  intercession  to  God 
for  a  King  of  France,  they  were  making  his  funeral  ceremony 
minus  a  coffin,  in  a  chamber  showing  disjointed  laths  and 
unplastered  beams.  No  thought  of  self  sullied  this  purest  of 
all  devotions,  this  act  of  marvelous  loyalty.  Maybe  to  God 
it  was  the  cup  of  cold  water  that  weighed  in  the  balance  as  a 
myriad  of  virtues.  Monarchy  was  present  in  the  prayers  c  f 
the  priest  and  the  two  poor  women ;  it  might  be  that  Revolu- 
tion was  also  there  in  the  person  -of  the  mysterious  visitor 
whose  countenance  showed  the  remorse  that  caused  him  to 
offer  this  solemn  repentance. 

In  place  of  pronouncing  the  Latin  words,  "introibo  ad  altare 
Dei,"  the  abbe,  with  an  intuition  almost  divine,  looked  down 
upon  his  congregation  of  three,  who  represented  Christian 
France,  and  said,  in  words  effectually  effacing  the  meanness 
and  squalor  of  the  den:  "We  enter  now  into  the  sanctuary 
of  God." 

Solemn  awe  seized  the  hearers  at  these  words,  uttered  with 
incisive  unction.  The  great  dome  of  St.  Peter's  in  Rome 
never  canopied  God  in  more  awful  majesty  to  humanity  than 
He  now  was,  beneath  this  trembling  roof,  in  the  eyes  of  these 
Christians;  making  patent  the  truth  that  no  mediation  is 
needed  between  God  and  man.  His  glory  descends  from 
Himself  alone.  The  warm  piety  of  the  unknown  was  evi- 
dently sincere — the  feeling  that  held  the  monarch  and  these 
four  servants  of  God  was  one.  The  sacred  words  resounded 
as  celestial  music  in  the  silence.  At  one  moment  the  un- 
known one  broke  down  and  wept ;  this  was  in  the  Pater 
noster,  to  which  the  abbe  added  a  clause  in  Latin  and  which, 
it  was  apparent,  the  visitor  understood  and  applied  ,  Et  re- 
mitte  scelus  regicidis  sicut  Ludovicus  eis  re  mi  sit  scmetipsc,  or, 
"And  forgive  the  regicides  as  Louis  XVI.  himself  forgave 
them."  The  sisters  saw  the  tears  coursing  down  the  virile 
cheeks  of  their  visitor,  and  splashing  fast  on  the  tiled  floor. 

The  Office  of  the  Dead  was  intoned.     The  Domine  salvum 


AN  EPISODE    OF   THE   REIG.\  OF   TERROR.       385 

fac  regem*  chanted  in  low  tones,  moved  the  hearts  of  these 
faithful  monarchists  as  their  thoughts  turned  to  the  infant 
King,  for  whom  the  prayer  was  offered,  and  who  was  now 
captive  in  the  hands  of  his  enemies.  Perhaps  fearing  a  further 
crime  impending,  in  which  he  must  needs  perform  an  unwill- 
ing part,  the  unknown  visitor  shuddered.  The  service  over, 
the  cur6  motioned  to  the  two  nuns  and  they  retired  to  the 
outer  chamber.  When  he  was  alone  with  the  unknown,  the 
old  man  approached  him  with  a  gentle  sadness  and  said,  in 
the  tone  of  a  father : 

"  My  son,  if  your  hands  have  been  steeped  in  the  blood  of 
that  holy  martyr,  the  King,  confess  now  yourself  to  me. 
There  is  no  crime  in  the  eyes  of  God  which  may  not  be 
washed  away  by  a  repentance  as  deep  and  sincere  as  yours 
seems  to  be." 

An  involuntary  movement  of  terror  escaped  the  stranger  at 
these  words ;  but  he  speedily  resumed  his  stolid  manner,  and, 
looking  on  the  priest  with  calm  assurance,  he  said : 

"My  father,"  in  a  voice  that  nevertheless  trembled,  "no 
one  can  be  more  innocent  than  myself  of  the  blood  shed " 

"  I  verily  believe  it,"  said  the  priest. 

He  paused  and  further  examined  the  penitent;  then,  his 
belief  becoming  certainty  that  he  was  one  of  those  timorous 
members  of  the  Assembly  who  sacrificed  the  sacred  and  in- 
violate head  to  save  their  own,  he  proceeded  in  a  grave  voice : 

"  Remember,  my  son,  that  much  more  than  not  having 
taken  part  in  that  great  sin  is  necessary  to  absolve  from  guilt. 
Those  who  retained  their  sabres  in  their  sheaths,  when  they 
should  have  drawn  to  defend  their  King,  must  render  a  heavy 
account  to  the  King  of  kings.  Yes,"  said  the  venerable  abbe, 
moving  his  head  expressively,  "  yes,  heavy  indeed !  by  idly 
standing  by  they  became  the  accomplices  in  a  terrible  trans- 
gression." 

"Is  it  your  belief,"  said  the  stranger  in  a  tone  of  amaze- 

*  Lord  save  the  King. 
25 


386       AN  EPISODE   OF  THE  REIGN  OF  TERROR. 

ment,  "that  an  indirect  participation  will  be  punished?  The 
soldier  under  orders  to  form  the  line — was  he  guilty?" 

The  abbe  hesitated. 

He,  the  stranger,  was  glad  of  the  dilemma  that  placed  this 
royalist  between  the  two  canons  of  passive  obedience  and  the 
consecrated  person  of  the  King — the  former  in  the  minds  of 
monarchists  should  dominate  the  military  system — and  he 
readily  accepted  the  hesitancy  on  the  part  of  the  priest  as 
solving  the  doubts  that  troubled  him.  Then,  so  as  to  allow 
no  time  for  the  old  Jansenist  to  further  reflect,  he  said  quickly : 

"It  would  cause  me  to  blush  were  I  to  offer  you  any  fee 
whatever  for  the  requiem  mass  you  have  just  celebrated  for 
the  rest  of  the  soul  of  the  King  and  for  the  ease  of  my  con- 
science. Inestimable  things  can  only  be  purchased  by  offer- 
ings without  price.  Be  pleased  to  accept,  monsieur,  the  gift 
of  a  holy  relic,  it  is  yours ;  the  time  may  be  when  you  will 
realize  its  value." 

Speaking  these  words  he  gave  the  ecclesiastic  a  small  box 
of  light  weight.  The  priest  involuntarily  held  out  his  hand 
and  took  it,  for  the  solemn  tone  of  the  words  and  the  mani- 
fest awe  depicted  on  the  stranger's  face  as  he  held  the  box 
filled  him  with  fresh  amazement.  The  two  nuns  were  await- 
ing them  as  they  entered  the  outer  room  together. 

"You  are  residing,"  said  the  stranger,  "  in  a  house  owned 
by  Mucius  Scsevola,  a  plasterer  living  on  the  first  floor,  who  is 
noted  in  this  arrondissement  for  his  patriotism.  All  the  same, 
he  is  secretly  devoted  to  the  Bourbons.  Formerly  he  was  Mon- 
seigneur  le  Prince  de  Conti's  huntsman,  he  owes  everything 
to  him.  In  this  dwelling,  so  long  as  you  may  stay,  you  are 
in  greater  safety  than  you  could  be  in  any  other  part  of 
France.  Pray  remain.  Pious  souls  will  supply  your  needs 
and  will  watch  over  and  protect  you ;  remain  here  awaiting 
without  fear  the  coming  of  brighter  days.  A  year  hence,  on 
that  same  twenty-first  of  January  "*  (he  shuddered  as  he  uttered 
*  Louis  XVI.  was  guillotined  op  this  date. 


AN  EPISODE    OF  THE  REIGN  OF  TERROR.       387 

these  words),  "  I  shall  come  again  to  once  more  celebrate  the 
mass  of  expiation " 

He  could  not  end  the  sentence.  He  bowed  to  his  silent 
auditors  and,  casting  a  last,  lingering  look  upon  the  tokens 
of  their  poverty,  he  disappeared. 

This  event,  to  the  two  simple-minded  women,  had  all  the 
interest  of  romance.  When  the  venerable  abbe  spoke  to  them 
of  his  mysterious  gift,  and  in  what  a  solemn  manner  it  had 
been  tendered  by  the  stranger,  it  was  placed  upon  the  table 
and  three  anxious  faces,  dimly  illumined  by  a  tallow-candle, 
betrayed  uncontrollable  curiosity.  Mademoiselle  de  Langeais 
opened  the  little  box,  she  took  from  it  an  exquisite  handker- 
chief of  marvelous  fineness,  stained  with  perspiration.  When 
she  unfolded  it  they  saw  dark  stains. 

"  That  is  blood  !  "  said  the  abbe. 

"It  is  marked  with  the  royal  crown!"  cried  the  other 
nun. 

The  sisters  let  it  fall,  this  precious  relic,  with  gestures  of 
horror.  The  mystery  that  enfolded  their  unknown  visitant 
was  inexplicable  to  these  ingenuous  minds,  and  the  abbe, 
from  that  day  on,  forbade  himself  to  attempt  the  solving  of 
the  enigma. 

The  three  recluses  soon  noticed  that,  in  despite  of  the  Ter- 
ror, a  powerful  arm  was  outstretched  above  them.  They  first 
received  firewood  and  victuals ;  then  the  sisters  readily  sur- 
mised that  some  woman  must  be  associated  with  their  pro- 
tector, for  linen  and  clothes  came  mysteriously  to  them;  this 
gave  them  opportunity  of  going  out  without  danger  of  observa- 
tion from  the  aristocratic  style  of  the  only  apparel  they  had 
been  able  to  obtain  ;  lastly,  Mucius  Scaevola  carried  to  them 
certificates  of  citizenship. 

The  necessary  means  to  be  taken  to  secure  the  safety  of  the 
abbe  would  often  come  from  the  most  unexpected  places,  and 
it  always  proved  so  singularly  opportune  that  it  was  evident 


388       AN  EPISODE    OF  THE  REIGN  OF  TERROR. 

that  it  could  only  have  been  given  by  some  personage  know- 
ing the  secrets  of  the  State.  Famine  was  rampant  in  Paris, 
yet  they  daily  found  at  the  door  of  their  hovel  rations  of 
white  bread,  always  laid  there  by  invisible  hands.  They 
recognized,  or  thought  they  did,  the  agent  of  their  benefac- 
tions in  Mucius  Scsevola,  as  they  were  ever  timely  and  just  as 
needed,  but  the  noble  tenants  of  the  dilapidated  garret  never 
doubted  that  the  unknown  being  who,  with  them,  had  cele- 
brated mass  on  January  22,  1793,  was  their  secret  protector. 
A  special  prayer  for  him  was  added  to  their  daily  supplica- 
tions ;  each  night,  each  day  these  pious  hearts  prayed  fervently 
for  his  happiness,  prosperity,  and  redemption.  God  was  im- 
plored to  keep  his  feet  from  snares  and  to  save  him  from  his 
enemies,  and  to  grant  him  a  happy,  long,  and  peaceful  life. 

Their  gratitude,  renewed  daily,  as  it  were,  was  impregnated 
with  curiosity  that  grew  more  intense  with  each  day.  All  the 
circumstances  attending  the  advent  of  the  stranger  formed  a 
ceaseless  subject  of  conversation,  conjectures  were  endless; 
this  ultimately  became  a  benefit  of  a  special  kind  from  their 
minds  being  thus  occupied  and  distracted.  They  had  quite 
resolved  that,  when  he  should  attend  on  the  next  sad  com- 
memoration of  the  anniversary  of  the  death  of  Louis  XVI., 
the  unknown  should  not  be  allowed  to  escape  the  due  expres- 
sion of  their  gratitude. 

At  length  that  night,  so  impatiently  awaited,  arrived.  At 
midnight  the  heavy  footfalls  resounded  on  the  wooden  stairs. 
The  chamber  was  already  arranged  for  the  sacrament,  the  altar 
dressed.  This  time  the  sisters  opened  the  door  and  hurried 
to  show  a  light  at  the  entrance.  Mademoiselle  de  Langeais 
even  descended  a  few  stairs  that  she  might  get  a  first  glimpse 
of  their  benefactor. 

"Come!"  said  she,  in  an  entreating,  trembling  voice. 
"  Come,  thou  art  expected." 

The  man  raised  his  head,  looked  gloomily  at  the  nun,  and 
made  no  answer.  She  felt  as  if  an  ice-cold  blanket  had  fallen 


AN  EPISODE    OF   THE   REIGN  OF   TERROR.       389 

upon  her,  and  she  kept  silence.  His  aspect  dried  up  the 
gratitude  and  curiosity  of  their  hearts.  It  was  probable  he 
was  less  cold,  less  taciturn,  less  terrible  than  he  seemed  to 
these  simple  creatures  to  be,  whose  own  emotions  led  them  to 
expect  a  responsive  echo  of  their  flow  of  friendship.  It  was 
easy  for  them  to  decry  that  this  mysterious  one  intended  re- 
maining a  stranger,  so  they  acquiesced  with  resignation.  The 
abbe,  though,  fancied  he  detected  a  quickly  repressed  smile 
upon  the  visitor's  lips,  as  he  noted  the  preparations  made  for 
his  reception.  He  listened  to  the  mass,  prayed,  and  disap- 
peared immediately,  refusing  in  courteous  tones  the  invitation 
extended  by  Mademoiselle  de  Langeais  to  remain  and  partake 
of  the  humble  fare  they  had  prepared  for  him. 

After  Thermidor  the  pth  the  sisters  and  the  Abbe"  de  Ma- 
rolles  could  traverse  Paris  without  fear.  The  aged  abb£  paid 
his  first  visit  to  the  Queen  of  Roses,  a  perfumery  store  kept  by 
Citizen  and  Citizeness  Ragon,  formerly  the  Court  perfumers, 
and  esteemed  for  thek  faithfulness  to  the  Bourbons,  and  whom 
the  Vendeens  utilized  as  a  means  of  communication  with  the 
princes  and  the  committees  of  Royalists  in  Paris.  Abb£  de 
Marolles  wore  the  clothing  prescribed  by  the  Code ;  as  he  was 
leaving  the  portal  of  the  store,  situated  between  the  church  of 
Saint-Roch  and  the  Rue  des  Fondeurs,  a  mob  of  people 
crowding  down  the  Rue  Saint-Honor^  prevented  his  de- 
parture. 

"What  is  it?"  he  said  to  Madame  Ragon. 

"  Nothing  !  "  she  replied,  "but  the  tumbril  and  the  execu- 
tioner going  to  the  Place  Louis  XV.  Oh,  we  saw  more  than 
enough  of  that  last  year  !  But  see  now,  only  four  days  after 
the  anniversary  of  the  2ist  of  January,  we  can  gaze  upon  it, 
that  most  horrid  procession,  with  equanimity." 

"  How  so?  "  inquired  the  abb£.  "  What  you  are  saying  is 
unchristian." 

"But,  Monsieur  1'Abbe,  this  is  the  execution  of  Robes- 


390       AN  EPISODE   OF  THE  REIGN  OF  TERROR. 

pierre's  accomplices.  They  could  not  prevail  to  longer  evade 
it,  and,  now,  they  in  their  turn  are  going  the  way  they  sent  so 
many  innocent  ones." 

The  Rue  Saint-Honore  was  choked  with  the  crowd  which 
surged  on  like  a  wave.  Above  the  ocean  of  heads  the  Abbe 
de  Marolles,  yielding  to  an  irresistible  impulse,  saw,  standing 
upright  in  the  cart,  the  unknown  visitor  who  but  three  days 
agone  had  joined  in  the  second  celebration  of  the  mass  of 
commemoration. 

"Who  is  that?"  he  said,  "that  one  standing " 

"The  executioner,"  answered  Monsieur  Ragon,  giving  him 
the  name  he  had  under  the  monarchy. 

"  Help !  help  !  "  cried  Madame  Ragon.  "  Monsieur  1'Abbe 
has  fainted." 

She  quickly  caught  up  a  flask  of  toilet-vinegar  and  he  was 
soon  restored  to  consciousness. 

"  He  must  have  given  me,"  said  the  venerable  abbe,  "the 
handkerchief  that  the  King  used  to  wipe  his  brow  as  he  was  led 
to  his  martyrdom.  Poor  man  !  a  heart  had  that  steel-blade 
when  all  France  was  without  one." 

The  perfumers  thought  the  words  of  the  abbe  were  those  of 
delirium. 


000  525  408 


f 


